


four years, four months (and how far we've come)

by king_froggy



Series: the years [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Keith/Lance (Voltron), Fluff and Smut, M/M, Making Love, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Romance, Switching, Very Big Emotions, realistic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-04-12 12:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/king_froggy/pseuds/king_froggy
Summary: “Yeah? And what’s Lance-science? The science of being a dumbass, or what?” Keith shot back.“Almost, but not quite.” Lance grinned at him. “The definition is actually: being correct about 99% of the time.” He started mechanically folding up the shirts that were lying in a pile around him, and neatly placing them inside the crate.Keith snorted, watching his long fingers move along the seams of the fabric. “And the 1%? What’s that? All of your laundry folding opinions?”Lance looked up from his work with a twinkle in his eye and that smirk that spelled Keith’s doom. “Nope, it’s actually that entire time I spent thinking I wasn't into you, obviously.” His smirk grew, somehow. “I’m only human.”orKeith realizing he is and has always beenthe one.





	1. the shack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenteafiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend/gifts), [magimagali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magimagali/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > “So… you forgot my name, huh?” Keith’s voice was playful, but harbored a dangerous edge, as he drifted closer and closer to Lance’s mouth. Lance was breathless and captive.
>> 
>> “I would never—” he said, his voice coming from somewhere only his deepest truths resided, clawing its way out. He reached up, and kissed Keith, feather-light, “forget—” _again_ , “a single thing—” _and again_ , “about you—” _and again_. Lance opened his eyes, looked up at Keith, and hoped he could see it in his eyes. That he was serious. That he’d never been more serious.
>> 
>> Keith exhaled in a quick, deflating whoosh, and bowed forwards. With his eyes closed, he fell against Lance’s forehead and slid his hands up to hold Lance’s neck like a precious vase. Lance felt the tremble in those fingers, the tentative pressure, and understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is for Angel. Happy birthday, I love you lots.
> 
> ◦ I wrote this as a submission for the Legendary Defenders NSFW exchange, and is dedicated to the whole gang. Thank you to all my boyz who sprinted with me, encouraged me, discussed with me, and listened to me complain. You guys gave me the confidence to write this and push through to the end.
> 
> ◦ Thank you to my wonderful beta [Ran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran). You constantly level me up in incredible ways, thank you so much for your work, your love and your insight. 
> 
> ◦ And Angel of course, thanks for betaing what turned out to be your own present. Thanks for every conversation, every emoji, and all of your effort and care.
> 
> ☛ There's a playlist for this chapter [here on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJncHEZ3URs&list=PLuqLKxI2tFQtzY6tNiMcrleTF6396RmQx).

“Ready?” Keith asked, giving him that same delighted smirk that always came with a jump into the unknown.  

 

Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, tucking his hands between shirt and skin. “Hell yeah,” he whispered, mouthing the words into Keith’s neck.

 

Lance felt the seat vibrate under him as Keith revved the engine, and then, the bike shot out of the Garrison parking lot towards the rugged red horizon. They hurtled forward at a terrifying speed, the blood orange desert floor beneath them bleeding into the distance, becoming the orange and yellow of stacked layers of sediment. Keith’s trigger happy grip on the gas ravenously ate up distance, and soon they were surrounded by rock formations that had been eroded into hulking shapes over hundreds of millions of years—formations that Keith was about to defy with unthinking daring. They were going to round corners that didn’t make sense centripetally, fit through impossible spaces, and drop straight down cliffs. Lance could feel it coming like a rain cloud about to break. He could still conjure the exact intonation of Keith’s voice, way back when, yelling at him: _shut up and trust me!_ He did then, and he did now. There was no one he trusted more than the person he was currently pressed up against, about to defy death in the desert under the most brilliant blue sky.

 

As if reading Lance’s mind and challenging the world around him, Keith leaned forward over the handlebars, right into the wind that whipped their hair around their faces and sent Keith’s wicked laugh back in the direction of the Garrison, towards all the mortals they’d left behind. He could feel Keith’s undiluted joy—under his hands, where they lay against Keith’s warm stomach, jumping and clenching with every sound he made—and against his chest, absorbing every vibration coming from Keith’s ribcage. In the circle of Lance’s arms, Keith was at his most effortless. His body a balance of relaxed and taut, his movements sure and confident, as only true mastery could make them.

 

And like clockwork, Keith made a sharp right through a gap in the cliffs surrounding them and maneuvered them through an obstacle course of narrow openings and tight corners. Lance couldn’t see the smirk on Keith’s face from where he was sitting, but he felt the curve of his mouth, the furrow of his eyebrows, viscerally, anyway. Because he’d seen it, felt it, traced it, kissed it before. Because it was intoxicating, and because seared deep in Lance’s mind was a catalog of Keith. His boyfriend of four months—who was currently taking them down that exact same runway leading up to a sudden drop.

 

A giddy shiver ran through Lance’s entire body, and he clutched Keith even tighter against his chest until Keith was pressed snug against him, thighs against thighs, in his arms and all around him, commanding the air, driving them towards their target. The thought that he was being taken by Keith, a passenger to his will, shot through his body. He felt a combination of fear, anticipation, and the usual sort of arousal that always seemed to be Lance’s reaction to Keith when he was like this. Incandescent.

 

The drop levitated his stomach up into his throat, and the ground, mirroring Lance’s stomach, levitated up to meet them. But there was never any doubt in Lance’s mind. Keith would handle it, just as he had done last time, leaning into the danger, and effortlessly righting when the time came.

 

Safe, speeding along the red dirt once again, Lance remembered exactly what it felt like the last time he was right here, riding Keith’s bike with Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk. The sheer terror he’d felt was undeniable... but there was delight there too. Even then, scared as hell, he’d been excited to be around Keith, involved with him somehow.

 

Lance chuckled to himself. He’d been so gone.

 

Now, he was involved with him in a different way. Now he was kissing Keith deep on Volix, after a banquet in the dark garden—holding Keith so close, whispering night-thoughts into his neck, legs tangled up in bed—touching him everywhere he was allowed to, his hands sliding slowly along smooth skin—holding his hand in a castle in the sky—on leave with him, on Earth with him, visiting home with him—getting Keith off, watching Keith come, mouth open, gasping—

 

And then they arrived, speeding towards ground zero, the origin of everything that had happened to them in the last four years.

 

Keith brought them to a swooping J-shaped stop, whipping up a billowing cloud of red dust around them.

 

“Showoff,” Lance spoke into Keith’s hair.

 

Keith laughed, low. He turned his head around to look at Lance over his shoulder and gave him a devastating smirk before dismounting.

 

It was the first time Lance had been here since the day they’d first taken off to fight a war in space, and Lance wondered what the sight of it would feel like. He followed Keith through the cave’s entrance, and the glare of the sun was instantly silenced, the change in brightness blinding Lance for a few long seconds. When his vision finally adjusted, he was off balance, dislocated. The cave felt just like it did in his memories; cool and dark, and when he raised his head, about to call for Keith, his voice died in his throat. Deja vu gripped Lance, washing the past through him like a tidal wave, and all he could see was Keith, a step ahead of him, leading him to Blue, and all he could feel was being himself back then, following and wanting.

 

Lance shifted his gaze, but the feeling remained, making him want to retrace the steps he took years ago.

 

“This place feels so weird, dude,” Lance finally managed, running his fingers over the same ridges in the walls, now dark with the absence of Blue. “Like we were here literally last week, but also in a previous lifetime, and also right now, all at the same time,” Lance continued tracing along the carved rock, feeling the grain with reverence.

 

Keith snorted up ahead, but Lance chose to ignore him. This was the site of the moment his life changed. It was the physical manifestation of his first connection to Blue, and it was where his life got tangled up with Keith’s. He remembered the exact feeling when he realized that the thing that had been calling Keith, was connected to him as well somehow. That their paths were intertwined, that he was mixed up in Keith’s life, and it excited him.

 

Keith. It always came back to him, since the day Lance had first laid eyes on him. Keith had walked into class, past Lance’s desk, dark eyes catching Lance’s momentarily. Lance’s gaze was instantly on a leash, following Keith right to the back of the room, and when their homeroom teacher had asked them to introduce themselves, he remembered putting an extra bit of pizzazz into his, checking to see if the new boy was paying attention, hoping he was.

 

He’d been trapped by those eyes for seconds that felt more like minutes, but it was enough to keep him there long after Keith had looked away, and dropped out, and reappeared and disappeared. The fact that there was something romantic, something he liked, like a current raging beneath the surface, was something Lance only half-knew by the time Keith was expelled. But half-knowing was a type of knowing that could turn into un-knowing, and be left safely unexamined. Half-knowing and realizing were very different animals, and it took the passage of years for him to finally understand himself.

 

When Keith’s laughter got louder up ahead, probably in response to Lance narrowly avoiding taking an extremely comic tumble into the large hole in the middle of the floor, Lance finally responded. “You’re laughing now, but I distinctly remember you shitting your pants back when Blue unleashed her magic powers on us in here.”

 

“Yeah, cause we were being _summoned_ by a _magical cat_ ,” Keith replied, mock-annoyed. “I think we all get a pants-shitting pass on that one,” he continued, his voice melting, becoming playful and light. Lance couldn’t help basking in the feeling of joking around with Keith, soaking up every drop of warmth and familiarity. He didn’t want to help it though, he wanted to let himself feel it.

 

Because now, Lance was finally able to fully grasp it, the nature of those deep waters. Lance had dipped his toes in the lake for years, trying not to acknowledge the shadowy unknown further out. An unknown he was scared would suck him in, pull him under, consume him if he stared for too long. Little did he know that daring to dive into the black wouldn’t result in drowning, but would bring him a kind of happiness he almost didn’t know what to do with. It would gift him the confidence he was forever imitating, nourish him with the knowledge that there was so much he could be loved for, so much he was to people. And at the bottom of it all, would be Keith. All of him, given to Lance fully, and easily. And all he had to do was look himself in the eye and _know_.

 

“Okay, I’ll retroactively grant the pass, I guess.” Lance conceded, with a pretend exasperated sigh, still trying to make out the different types of rock within the carving.

 

Keith was a way ahead of Lance now, across the big hole in the ground. “Thanks,” he said, with a thick teasing edge, his voice resonating across the hollow space between them as he followed the markings deeper down into the cave.

 

Despite the dim light, Lance could still clearly see Keith’s familiar red-jacketed and booted figure up ahead, and despite having grown in the intervening years, Keith, scouting out the cave in front of him, rushed into him like a vision from the past. It was the Keith from back then, who Lance had thought was sharp and talented and handsome, and so damn cool—and way above him, obviously. That weird feeling of time being mixed like sticky dough in his brain returned, and Lance was overcome by the ghost of his former self. The one that had followed Keith into this cave years ago, and the one that had all these feelings for him and no idea what to do with them.

 

That Lance had wanted to draw attention to himself, make Keith turn around and notice. But before he could say anything, his present self intervened, having long since decoded it all. _You don’t need to, he’s already yours._

 

And with that, he let himself fall back into the mixture of selves, allowing his past self access to the full truth. He passed the hole in the ground and completely gave in to the magnetic pull from across the room. He wanted, he wanted.

 

Lance slid his arm around the bit of black t-shirt that was exposed under Keith’s jacket, spinning him into his arms and bringing him in tight, right up against Lance’s body in one fluid motion. He wanted so badly, and now he could.

 

Lance felt Keith’s chest expand against his in surprise at the sudden ambush. Keith’s mouth was left shiny and slightly parted around a gasp, his eyes infinite and wide. Everything dark and dramatic about Keith’s face was only heightened by their surroundings, rendering him absolutely devastating in the low light.

 

This was what the ghost wanted, really. In the end, it was just this.

 

He brushed a hand through Keith’s hair, feeling the soft strands glide through his fingers, and cupped his cheek and jaw reverently. Lance’s eyes stayed open as he leaned in slowly, his movements deliberate. He needed to see Keith; name and note every detail, every movement. He watched Keith’s entire body pour itself into the kiss, his eyes sliding to half-mast for a beat— then shut—his face tilting, mouth opening; hungry, reaching.

 

Suspended an inch away from bliss, Lance could feel the hot caress of his exhale. Lance took a long breath and closed his eyes.

 

Their lips slid together, smooth and easy and lingering, again and again, and again. Lance reveled in the taste of him, the smell of him, and the feel of him in his arms and in his head. Keith let himself be dragged under by the current without hesitation, his body molten and demanding against Lance’s—to be closer, to have more.

The kiss broke with the fantasy, but right before the end, as a last send-off to his other self, Lance thought: don’t worry, he’s going to want you for you.

  


“Hey,” Lance said to Keith when they finally broke apart, a moment of unknown length later.

 

“Hi.” Keith’s voice was low and full of mirth. Keith’s eyes, open and trained on him, were spotlights, and he couldn’t help but look right back into the glare. Lance stood close, held tight, and was immobilized by the thick connection between them. Their eyes were locked and Lance felt seen, felt the power of watching Keith see him.

 

And then—“You okay, Lance?”

 

Lance took a step back. “Yup, doin’ great! Just overcome with a sudden need to kiss my hot boyfriend.” He wasn’t going to attempt to explain what had actually come over him. “How about we check out how far these go, Kogane,” he said instead, slipping his hand into Keith’s, and lacing their fingers together.

 

“Um, sure,” Keith said, the bafflement apparent in his voice.

 

Hands clasped, they made their way through the tunnel, jokingly trying to decipher the markings along the way.

 

The destination they stumbled upon was the same as it had been last time. The same cavernous hollow, despite the fact that their hasty exit had caved the roof in. The ruins lay in a pile underneath the great big hole above them, flooded by sunlight, a monument.

 

“This must be how my Mom and Pop got down here back then,” Keith said, wandering around the boulders occupying the space that Blue had held.

 

“Well Keith, in that case, I have some questions for Blue,” Lance declared indignantly from the tunnel’s exit, watching Keith climb up. “If there was a sane way to get here, why did Blue need to _swallow us up through a hole in the floor_?!”

 

Keith chuckled. “Maybe she was worried you’d get lost on your way or something.” He’d found a large piece of rock that gave him enough purchase to pull himself up quite a ways.

 

“There was only one way to go—you were there, it’s a no-fork situation!” Lance squawked before his mock-indignance deflated, and he approached the pyramid of rock that Keith was nearly done climbing up. “Damn, I do love getting retroactively roasted by Blue,” he grumbled with a fond smile.

 

Keith was now sitting atop a pedestal, one of his legs bent at the knee, the other left dangling. His body language was expansive, an arm lazily perched on his knee.

 

“Maybe she’s just extra, like you.” Keith delivered the line with a razor-sharp smirk, gazing down at Lance below him. Lit up by the sun, atop a throne of stone, he looked like an emperor, like an elemental power with the ability to level man-made structures.

 

 

Lance was speechless for a second, tingling all over, gaping. Like Blue had drawn Keith, Keith had always drawn Lance. And like Blue, Keith had been there, at the end of a long tunnel— waiting for him, wanting to connect with him. Lance might have taken the long way round, but he had finally made it through a few months ago, abandoning the last of any illusions that he might not be completely and irrevocably in love with Keith Kogane. Realizing that it couldn’t be anything else.

 

And here Keith still was, up on high, an offering.

 

“Let’s get outta here,” Lance said, at length.

  
  


It was the second time Lance had ever been to the shack, though it might as well have been the first. This was where he’d met Shiro, and where he’d slept, squished up between Hunk and Pidge on the sofa, where he’d heard Keith explain his search in the desert. But despite the significance, despite the fact that he would never forget that night, he was now seeing it with completely different eyes. Every little detail in this place was part of the story of Keith, a story  Keith was inviting him to read, a story Lance’s eyes could now understand.

 

They dumped armfuls of supplies onto the small table in the kitchen, and Keith got to work on getting the fire going, while Lance stood there at a loose end, looking around. “You need any help or anything?” Lance asked finally, while Keith squatted next to the stove door, feeding it kindling. His eyes were hung up on the lines of Keith’s spread thighs, his arms and his back as he moved and reached for various tools, shifting his weight, shifting his feet.

 

“I’m fine, I can get it done pretty quickly,” Keith said, looking up to address Lance with a confident smile, and bright eyes. Keith was going through the motions like a well-oiled machine. Like he’d done this without help a million times before, and it hit Lance that he probably had. “But you can take the stuff into our room if you want,” Keith added, like it was nothing.

 

Lance mind tripped into white noise, thinking about our room. Keith’s most intimate, private space. Him and Keith. Our. Our room.

 

“Okely dokely,” he said, strained, but hoping Keith wouldn’t notice. He picked up the bags they’d packed earlier and made his way through the small living room to the main bedroom. Keith’s scent enveloped him as soon as he entered. A little part of Lance had the presence of mind to wonder if Keith had changed his bedsheets in the week that they’d been back on earth, while the rest of him was preoccupied with the smell of Keith everywhere. He inhaled, hard, thinking that maybe if he got enough of it he might be able to keep it inside him forever.

 

The room was dark and cool, the blinds drawn, painting lazy stripes of sunset onto the dark blue bedspread and wooden floorboards. He dumped their bags near the foot of the bed, and looked around the room, taking in the cupboard to one side, and the desk and the cork board on the other. The board was now filled with pictures and drawings rather than maps and string.

 

There were plenty of team Voltron, and many of Lance alone; looking back at the camera, hair windswept, on a cliff overlooking the frozen forest on Kesta—giving a cocky two-fingered salute inside Red—smiling up at the camera softly and sleepily, lying in bed. And then there were the pictures of the two of them. Laughing and clinging to one another in the hangar. Lance leaning over an amused-looking Keith’s seat on the bridge to kiss him on the mouth. A picture of Lance gesticulating wildly, and Keith, to the side, looking at him like that.

 

He tore his gaze away, overcome.

 

Lance’s eyes landed on Keith’s bed. On a whim, he yanked his shoes off and crawled into it. Beneath the covers was a pile of Keith’s sleep shirt and pants, which Lance scooped up and laid on top of the pillows, before curling up on his side, his nose buried in the clothes. With the covers drawn up to his ears, he felt surrounded and infused by Keith.

 

Lance's eyes fell on Keith's bedside table, and he examined the items placed there; a small multi-layered rock, a miniature of Keith’s bike, a small lamp, a glass of water. For years, this must have been what Keith saw when he opened his eyes. He imagined him lying here, on any given morning, staring up at the window, feeling compelled, feeling pulled out there. He imagined his single-minded determination after Shiro was gone. His solitude, and his drive to connect to something. He imagined what Keith would do, getting up in the morning, answerable to nobody—alone. Probably go over to the cupboard, get dressed, and search.

 

With a self-deprecating chuckle, he remembered what he himself was up to at the time… probably jerking off thinking about Keith. In a state of complete obliviousness, of course. The fantasy always started with beating him, obviously, and then it branched off. Sometimes Keith would be so impressed that he'd let Lance suck his dick, and sometimes he’d push Lance against the simulator, kiss him rough and jerk him off. And always there were those eyes, devouring him.

 

His world back then had been the simulator score, trying to flirt with all his female classmates, and imagining Keith, too good for the Garrison, out there somewhere, being cooler than him. And Keith had been here, in this room, lost.

 

He was going to make this place a site of love again, for Keith.

 

Lance threw the covers off and jumped up, having probably spent a suspicious amount of time bringing their bags in. Taking a quick detour into the bathroom, he emerged to see Keith dishing out their portions of beans and salted potatoes onto aluminum all-purpose dishes. Taking a moment in the doorway, he watched Keith hover over each plate in turn, trying to make sure the portions were equal. Lance knew exactly what the expression on his face was right now, it was the concentrated frowny face, and suddenly he needed to be touching Keith, like, yesterday.

 

“Hey, Keith,” said Lance, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind, plastering their bodies together. Holding Keith’s body against his like this felt so fucking good. Muffled up against Keith’s neck, he added, “mmh, so sweet.”

 

Keith snorted, gamely trying to carry their food across to the sofa and coffee table with Lance as a semi-cooperative backpack, “It’s baked beans, Lance.”

 

Lance blinked hard. Of course, Keith thought he was talking about the beans.

 

“I did put cheese on though, so it shouldn’t be too sweet.” Keith continued, looking genuinely concerned. They were now seated side by side on the sofa, coffee table pulled forward so they could rest their dishes on it.

 

This time, Lance couldn’t help but let out a garbled noise. “It’s alright Keith, I think I’m gonna love it,” he managed, slightly strained, picking up his fork.

 

The baked beans, salted potatoes, and cheese were pretty good actually, and he really wanted to put Keith’s misplaced worries to bed. “Hey, thanks for cooking. This is really tasty, you put chilies in?” he asked.

 

Keith was in the middle of chewing a particularly large mouthful, so his reaction to the praise warped around the food in his mouth; his comically distended cheeks pulled into a pleased smile.

 

Lance giggled at the expression. Keith looked so silly and happy and loose, and so fucking beautiful. A tidal wave of adoration swept through Lance, cresting, destined to break and drown him from the inside out.

 

Keith swallowed his food. Then, he said softly, “Thanks, Lance—It’s actually just Tabasco, I put it in everything, basically.”

 

Something about his tone, something about that tidbit, that little insight into Keith’s culinary habits, broke the levee. The flood was coming; it was bubbling up his throat, threatening to spill out of him and Lance couldn’t do anything about it but give himself over to it, his heart beating furiously in preparation.

 

“I love you,” Lance said, words tripping over themselves to leave his mouth, the truth wanting so badly to make itself known to Keith.

 

Keith froze, his face heating up and his mouth falling open in surprise. His eyes were open so wide, his pupils dilated, looking totally overwhelmed. Lance really didn’t want Keith to feel pressured by his sudden outburst, so he leaned over and put one shaking hand on Keith’s knee in an attempt at a soothing gesture.

 

“Keith you don’t—” Lance began, but was interrupted immediately.  

 

“I love you, Lance,” Keith said, staring down at Lance’s hand touching him. He raised his eyes to meet Lance’s once again. His face was beet red (probably mirroring Lance’s own), but it didn’t diminish the power of their locked eyes in the ensuing silence. Keith’s eyes held nothing back, lit up with the intensity of every feeling inside him. “I love you too,” he said.

 

The moment was a lot, suddenly. It was so much, wrapped up in the trappings of the mundane. A shack, Tabasco, an old sofa, and every thought and feeling he’d ever had for Keith distilled. A shack, Tabasco, an old sofa, this moment, and Keith’s words. He loved him too. Keith loved him back.

 

The moment pulled them closer. Lance closed the distance between them, pressing himself up against Keith’s side, kissing his neck, chin, cheek, lips—sweet, sustained, and desperate—hooking his arm around Keith’s, taking his hand and tangling their fingers. Keith sighed, relaxing into Lance’s side, easing them both back into the sofa, kissing him back with calm ferocity, squeezing his hand tight. They sat in silence for a while, and the moment sat with them.

 

Finally, with a wild goofy grin on his face, Lance spoke into Keith’s shoulder, “You must really love me, cause you have about four million pictures of my face all over your bedroom.”

 

Keith made a drawn out, skeptical hmmm, smiling face betraying him. He pulled away from Lance gently and resumed his meal. “So what were you doing in there, huh? Napping? Tryna find my secret knife collection? Filming a video critiquing my range of hair care products again?” He was bowed forward over the coffee table, shoveling the last of his food into his mouth, and he still managed to look like the most attractive person Lance had ever seen— certainly the most attractive person shoveling food into their mouth. His thighs were spread and tense, back taut, and Lance wanted to reach out and trace the lines of his body.

 

Lance picked his fork back up like a baton, preparing to address the multitude of issues with the question. “First of all, a ‘range’ generally implies there are more than zero things in question. Secondly, your knife collection isn’t secret. And thirdly, if you must know, I was in the bathroom and got into a really long  ‘Celebrities: Where Are They Now’ video.”

 

“So,” Keith gave him a lazy smirk, threatening to fold into a laugh, “where are they now, Lance? Anywhere good?”

 

“Nah, mostly just kicking rocks,” Lance said, keeping it nonchalant. Then, because he couldn’t resist—his head felt light with happiness, and he couldn’t wait—he added, “oh, except this one guy, he’s pretty famous in the military I think—can’t _quite_ remember his name though—but apparently he’s on holiday with his exceptionally handsome and amazing boyfriend somewhere out in the desert right now. Reports suggest the guy’s boyfriend is gonna straight-up ravish him in about—” Lance looked at his non-existent watch, brows furrowed, “—well, as soon as he finishes his potatoes.”

 

Keith’s laugh was shocked out of him along with some of his last bite of potato, and a gross coughing fit, and as soon as Keith recovered, his face was red again, he choked out, “Oh my god, Lance.”

 

Lance had leaned forward so as to be able to intervene with the Heimlich maneuver should it be necessary but ended up just stroking Keith’s back in large gentle movements under his jacket. He insinuated himself even further into Keith’s personal space. “Wow, the video was right. Incredible. How could they have predicted this, I wonder…” Lance tried and failed to keep the delight out of his voice when he spoke into Keith’s ear.

 

Not willing to give Lance the satisfaction of having his awful joke actually work, Keith got up with their plates, still red in the face, but giving him the kind of knowing, lopsided smile that told Lance that it was a close call. The aftershocks of their mutual confession earlier hadn’t stopped shaking through Lance’s heart, and the sight of Keith’s amusement sent another wave through it. He loved being able to make Keith laugh, loved that he liked Lance’s stupid jokes, loved that they had so much fun together. They were so goddamn happy.

 

Keith was putting stuff away by the sink, and Lance could see the way he was gathering himself through the mundane routine, shaking off his embarrassment, and centering himself for what was to come. A hot bolt shot through Lance’s stomach, and his shit eating grin returned. He knew what was coming.

 

As soon as he imagined it, he wanted it so badly he was burning for it. He wanted to touch Keith, wanted to have him, right now. Keith loved him—they loved each other—it was a fact that had been true yesterday, probably, and the day before. But the speaking of it, having it become a known truth between them, transformed them anyway. It was a new bond that wanted badly to be confirmed. It was a ‘t’ waiting to be crossed, a loaded gun wanting to be triggered, a dark purple thundercloud above them, pregnant, heavy, and begging to become a drenching summer rain.

 

Keith turned around, and the rain came. His dark, purple eyes caught Lance’s, deep, and alive, and swallowing him whole. Keith’s six confident steps over to where Lance was sitting, elbows on knees and arms dangling, unloaded the gun; each one landing low in Lance’s stomach, sending his heartbeat racing. The thunderous energy that Keith embodied was exhilarating, and Lance wanted badly to match it and live up to what Keith directed at him. So as soon as Keith was in reaching distance, Lance reached. Keith came easily, climbing up, and sitting across Lance’s lap, his thighs spread like he owned it—like the cross on the ‘t’.

 

The heavy weight of him, right there, pressing up against Lance’s crotch, against his chest, across his legs, squeezing his hips, and the smell and the feel of holding his warm waist in his hands was a cocktail of exciting and overwhelming, and right, and looking up at Keith, their lips close to touching but not, was electric. Lance breathed in through his mouth, hard, and tightened his hold on Keith’s waist, feeling the tactile give of his flesh under his fingers. He was trying to touch him more, grab him more. Somehow get more of him in his hands.

 

“So… you forgot my name, huh?” Keith’s voice was playful, but harbored a dangerous edge, as he drifted closer and closer to Lance’s mouth. Lance was breathless and captive.

 

“I would never—” he said, his voice coming from somewhere only his deepest truths resided, clawing its way out. He reached up, and kissed Keith, feather-light, “forget—” _again,_  “a single thing—” _and again,_  “about you—” and _again_. Lance opened his eyes, looked up at Keith, and hoped he could see it in his eyes. That he was serious. That he’d never been more serious.

 

Keith exhaled in a quick, deflating whoosh, and bowed forwards. With his eyes closed, he fell against Lance’s forehead and slid his hands up to hold Lance’s neck like a precious vase. Lance felt the tremble in those fingers, the tentative pressure, and understood.

 

 

 

He slid his nose alongside Keith’s until they were cheek to cheek, the tender slide of skin on skin, soft and reverent. “You’re in me so deeply, I’ll never get you out, even if I tried,” Lance said, like a secret from inside his guts, spoken softly into the hair behind Keith’s ear. Lance breathed him in and thought: Keith was in his DNA, and it still wasn’t close enough.

 

As if in response to the thought, Lance’s hands couldn’t help themselves. He slid them up Keith’s shirt, and clutched his back, pulling him in closer. It was the impulse to consume Keith—just like thoughts of Keith had been consuming him all day (week, month, year, life)—that had kept him constantly simmering, just off a boil, for as long as he could remember.

 

“Then don’t try.” Keith pulled away and looked directly at him as he spoke. Lance gasped, short, and then Keith kissed him on the mouth, long.

 

“Never,” Lance’s whispered up against Keith’s lips between kisses, a prayer.

 

After that, all that seemed important was getting as close to Keith as humanly possible. Lance jammed Keith’s hips into his own, pushing and grabbing the backs of his thighs with his hands spread, and let his mouth fall open into the kiss. Keith’s body came like warm butter, needing only the slightest suggestion to melt against Lance, moving his crotch in tight circles, mouth wide open, and groaning low when their tongues met. His hunger and his willingness, the pressure on Lance’s dick, and the slick stroke and sliding caress of their mouths pulled Lance under, into the thick black treacle of arousal.

 

When Lance pulled away, Keith made a little annoyed sound in the back of his throat, leaning forward to continue, eyebrows bunched.

 

“I’m gonna lift us, yeah? Hang on, baby,” Lance said, after succumbing to Keith’s demand for another kiss.

 

Keith snickered. “Really?” he asked, one eyebrow arched playfully.

 

“Do you wanna fight, Kogane? Cause we can go, if you wanna go,” Lance replied, unable to keep the huge dopey smile off his face, before getting up off the couch and hoisting Keith up with him on his hips. He spun Keith around in circles in triumph, managing to knock Keith’s feet against the back of a chair, tipping it over.

 

Keith laughed, limbs wrapped around Lance like a koala. “Maybe, but later,” he mumbled, unable to resist wiggling his ass against Lance’s still very existent boner.

 

Keith buried his face in Lance’s shoulder as he walked them through to the bedroom. The cool low light of dusk had by now cast its spell; it had the magic of a liminal place between light and dark, blue and grey with the shadows and shapes of Keith’s things. He didn’t turn the lights on. Instead, he laid Keith out against the sheets, in the center of the room.

 

Keith, offering himself up in the blue half-light, flipped his stomach. Keith’s legs were bent at the knee and spread lazily, propping himself up on his elbows, his eyes challenging Lance to come touch him. He was perfect; in this room, among his things, in this light, whose magic made everything feel stripped bare. All revealed, all seen, he’d never felt so close to the heart of Keith. There was the model bike, and there was the rock, and there was Keith, looking like someone painted his clothes on him. Looking comfortable. Looking like he felt safe to demand things.

 

All of those pulp novels Lance had once written in his head seemed insular and juvenile and embarrassingly inadequate stacked right up against Keith. The Keith who was black shiny vinyl, sweat and flesh and emotion. The Marianas Trench sucking Lance into his depths and remaking him with a force harsh enough to crunch bones.

 

Lance exhaled loudly out of his mouth, meeting Keith’s eyes, but unable to move.

 

Keith had the power to reroute the rivers of Lance’s mind, but he also existed on the most basic of human planes. The physical, the base. He devoured Lance’s mind while twisting his guts with a look, and summoning his dick with the movement of a thigh.

 

Keith was painted in the cool colors of dusk. Lance took stock of his muscles, his curvy, slender limbs, his face, his eyes, his mouth, inviting Lance in completely. He was so open, allowing Lance to see everything, take anything. He was so sweet, so sexy, making Lance fall for him again and again and again, time after time.

 

“You gonna be hovering for much longer, Lance?” Keith asked, cutting in.

 

Lance snapped back to himself suddenly. Instead of saying the words that immediately came to mind (“Jeez, let a guy take in the view”), he whispered, “I just can’t stop looking at you, Keith.”

 

Keith’s gasped, barely distinguishable from a breath, never not affected when Lance laid it all out there like that. But before Lance could do or say anything further, Keith snatched him off his knees with a hard yank at his collar and strong thighs around his hips, pulling him down. Lance caught his body on his forearms, taking care not to catch any of Keith’s hair when he landed inches above him with a whoosh.

 

There was a moment, then. Their eyes met, and the room reduced down to the space within the cage of Lance’s arms, filled by breathing, slightly out of synch, and Keith’s loud eyes, chanting desire and adoration. His lips might have been drawn up into a triumphant smirk, but his eyes were alive, wanting, and full of love. He looked happy. What could Lance have possibly done to deserve this, this complete surrender?

 

“I…” Keith trailed off, and the space shrank further until it was only the distance between their lips. Lance watched Keith lick his lips and tilt his chin up. “Lance,” he breathed into the space separating them, sounding like he was both asking and answering, both praying and explaining.

 

A series of impressions swam in and out of focus: Keith’s eyes, violently exposed—the way he said “Lance”, that specific way his vocal chords rendered the word—Lance, my name, _me_ —the feeling of being known, seen, real, perceived by Keith—being tangible and here, this point in space and time, lying in the v of Keith’s legs, against his warm, eager body. The thoughts began to mix up and make less and less sense, too big to contain all at once. Until the moment snapped, his eyes shut, and their open mouths connected.

 

It was deep and wet and went straight to his dick, but Lance hoped Keith could feel what he was trying to tell him, what all those feelings and thoughts that he couldn’t put into words were. It was all mixed up and huge and confusing but in the wanton wind of his tongue, the slick caress of his lips, and the bracket his hand made around Keith’s soft cheek, it felt like it could be simple.

 

Keith gripped at the fabric on his back and kissed him in surging waves. Keith was boiling, gripping his shoulders, his neck, his arms, unable to make up his mind, while his boots dug into Lance’s ass, pulling them closer. But it wasn’t a fog of mindless lust. He felt it in him, the pull, the mix of fast and slow, movement and sound and touch that made Lance feel at once desperately wanted, comprehensively desired and carefully cared for. Like Keith was trying to get under his skin, and into his guts. Lance’s body felt all of it, received it, understood it, and then gave it all back to Keith, speaking some kinetic language that he couldn’t remember learning, but that came to him like second nature the moment their lips first touched.

 

Keith was pushing up against Lance’s hard dick, and it was driving him crazy, blunt but teasing through layers of jeans and zipper metal and buttons. He wanted—he really really needed more. Never breaking the rhythm between their lips and tongues, Lance brought the hand that had previously been touching Keith’s face, down his neck and over his chest, jacket and all. He ran his hands down firmly, because, as always, Lance longed to touch and confirm. He wanted to know the exact feeling of the contours of Keith’s body, and the items he chose to adorn it with.

 

Keith’s mouth relaxed, his tongue going playful, losing the frantic edge—like he was being held down and grounded under Lance’s affirming touch.

 

Lance broke away to a sound of protest from Keith, his eyes still closed, but his eyebrows making his confusion known. Lance laughed, quiet but bright, and gave him a slow, closed mouth kiss in apology, before mumbling against his lips, “I’m gonna move us, ‘kay?”

 

Keith made a vaguely assenting grunt, tilting his chin up in a silent protest at the idea that this should mean they needed to stop kissing.

 

Lance moved his hands from Keith’s chest to his back and rolled them onto their sides. Wasting no time in their new position, Lance wound his arm around Keith’s waist, gathered him up, and kissed him deep and sustained. The sound of the odd rustle of fabric, the slow wet sounds of their lips moving together, and Keith’s long breaths through his nose, slid down Lance’s spine like sweet honey. He groaned softly with arousal and moved his hand from Keith’s waist down to his ass—that perfect shape in his grip—spreading his hand wide, and pushing, pressing their hips flush. Keith made an _agh_ sound into Lance’s mouth at the renewed friction between their erections, still both trapped in layers.

 

But Lance wanted—he wanted—closer, even closer, and more. More somehow, more of Keith’s body against his, more of his ass and legs and mouth, more of everything—Lance smoothed his hand down, until it was cupping the top of one of Keith’s thighs, just under the crease of his ass, and gave it a prompting tap.

 

Keith knew what he was asking for instinctively, and slid his knee up and hooked his leg around Lance’s hip eagerly. Lance immediately made use of the increased access, stroking the back of Keith’s thigh from his knee, and then up and across his ass slowly. He was so fucking sexy like this, wound around him and completely open. Lance grabbed him again, ground their bodies up against each other, and dove back in for a fierce kiss, trying to express what Keith made him feel, that he was on the precipice of madness for him. Keith shivered and groaned at the rough treatment, jerking back against Lance.

 

Lance pulled back once again, putting an inch of space between their faces. He didn’t stop stroking up Keith’s leg, across his ass, tracing the seams of his jeans running between his cheeks. He watched Keith inhale, scrunching up his eyebrows at the teasing pressure. His reactions were always incredible to behold, and eliciting more of them was addictive.

 

“Hey,” Lance whispered like he was pulling Keith into an alcove for a conspiratorial aside, while the rest of their activities were paused. He caught Keith’s eyes with a gentle smile, and his chest bloomed at the sight, as it always did.

 

“Hey,” Keith ground out, looking so wrecked and wild, but smiling too.

 

“What’re we feeling?” Lance could take a guess, but he didn’t want to. It was partly a desire to have Keith spell it out for him, but he mostly wanted to check in with Keith. He knew they weren’t always ready for the same things, no matter what it seemed like, and he liked being on the same page.

 

“I want you to fuck me, Lance,” Keith didn’t miss a beat, as straightforward as anything.

 

“Like, uh, fully—” Lance said, just to make sure.

 

“Yes, Lance, fully fuck me, please.” Keith was laughing.

 

“Ok, ok, ok, just making sure you’re comfy and relaxed and all that.” Lance gave him a sweet lingering closed-mouthed kiss. They’d only fucked each other like that a few times each, so it still held a measure of novelty and significance. They were still in the process of learning, their bodies still getting acquainted, familiarizing themselves with the radical form of intimacy that was required when you were physically within another person. Lance wanted Keith to be relaxed and ready to let go for him.

 

“Yeah, Lance,” Keith gave him a look that managed to express so much, Lance was impressed. “I’m good, and—I want to.” There was desire, but also a breathtaking vulnerability in his expression. It was vulnerability so powerful because it was safely offered up, in the knowledge that Lance knew exactly how he was feeling because he had experienced the same, and could understand. “I actually got some Earth stuff, it’s in the drawer—” Lance cut him off with a long kiss, trying to convey everything: a response, a feeling, security, love.

 

When he finally broke away, Lance couldn’t help himself: “Oh, really? So this has been in the works for a while, huh?” He chuckled. “Full Intercourse in the ancestral shack…” Lance trailed off, and a truly devilish smirk grew on his face, “you know, you were probably conceived here, Keith.”

 

“Lance…” Keith’s tone was warning, but the quirk of the corner of his lips betrayed his amusement.

 

“The Desert Fuck Shack, or DFS… it does have a sort of ring to it, huh?” Lance continued, whispering conspiratorially, straddling the line between ridiculous and kind of seductive.

 

“Urgh, Lance!” Keith laughed, and scrunched up his face, “is nothing sacred to you?”

 

Lance laughed along with him, unable to help the unbearably sappy expression that was no doubt all over his face. “Nah, not really.”

 

Then Lance lowered his voice back down to a whisper: “I can’t lie, Keith, I’ve actually always wanted to… have you, in any way you’d want me, here, on Earth, or like, at the Garrison or something.”

 

“Really? Is that a fantasy of yours?” Keith leaned forward to kiss him soft and slick.

 

“Yeah, I mean, you know I used to jack off thinking about you, like, daily back then,” Lance punctuated the statement with a kiss that tried to pour as much honest emotion into it as he could, despite the subject matter, and despite also restarting his hand movements all over Keith’s ass.

 

“I’d think about like—sucking your dick after class—or you’d push me into a broom closet—or, or, find me in the shower or in my room—I wanted you so _so_ bad, Keith.” Lance punctuated each clause with a kiss.

 

Keith’s face did something complicated. “We can do that… if you want—whatever you want,” he said, all in, instantly.

 

Excitement, love, gratitude, and arousal raced through Lance. “Hell yeah, I want you to tell me I’m handsome and cool, and then fuck me against the simulator,” he says in a seductive, low voice that he put on half as a joke, and half very seriously.

 

“Ok,” Keith told him before pulling Lance back to his mouth roughly. Keith let himself fall into the kiss, becoming decadent and pliant in his arms. When all those fantasies originated, and far beyond, if he was honest, he’d never have guessed Keith would be like this. Passionate and easy like this. Even well into their time in space, he’d always imagined Keith fucking him hard around the castle, grabbing him, shoving, taking him, pinning him down and consuming him. He’d thought Keith was the kind of person that would take. But here Keith was, right in front of him, giving himself up so completely. It made Lance want so badly to live up to what was being given, to be and do all he was capable of being and doing for Keith.

 

He knew, deep in his bones that Keith wouldn't make demands, wouldn’t take, so he vowed to make the demands of himself instead.

 

“But first, where’d you put the stuff?” Lance grinned.

 

Keith extricated himself from where he was wound around Lance, sat up and leaned across to the nightstand to fumble around and get out a purple pump bottle of lube. Thinking about Keith going into a gas station or grocery store sometime in the last week to buy sex paraphernalia was suddenly both the cutest and hottest thing Lance could imagine. Keith was planning all this, thinking about him, Lance and his dick and having sex while just going about his day.

 

He watched the line of Keith’s body as he reached over, and then tossed the bottle down beside them, and sat down on his knees in front of where Lance had taken a seat cross-legged, and taken off his shoes.

 

“No condom?” Lance asked, seeing nothing else in Keith’s hand.

 

“No, I wanna—” Keith started, looking up at Lance through his eyelashes, looking nervous. Lance couldn’t have that.

 

“Okay, ‘course, whatever you want, Keith,” he cut Keith off with a reassuring squeeze of the hand.

 

They kissed gentle and awkward now, sitting face to face at different heights, but the sentiment remained.

 

“Let me get your jacket,” Lance mumbled, easing it off his shoulders. Keith straightened out his elbows to allow Lance to slide it off his arms completely, but as soon as it was off and in his grasp, Keith flung it over his head and onto the floor with a wry smile, pre-empting whatever joke was on the tip of Lance’s tongue about Keith’s impulsive impatience. Lance giggled.

 

Keith then reached back behind his head with one recently exposed, perfect arm, and yanked his shirt off, throwing it behind him to join the jacket. He was so god damn hot. His boyfriend was half-naked and so confident in his actions, his face so handsome and full of mirth. Lance thought he’d probably never get over the fact that the smallest thing Keith did just about killed him.

 

While Lance ruminated on Keith’s half-naked body, Keith took the opening to grab at Lance, trying to get to his shirt before his jacket was even off.

 

Lance laughed, stilling Keith’s wrists with his hands. “Babe, let me… Outer layers before inner layers,” he said with a mock helpful tone. After getting rid of his own jacket and shirt, he opted to throw them both at Keith’s face, who smelled them briefly and threw them both behind him with his usual Keith-like vigor.

 

They went down gently, after that. They kissed sweet and soft, but with a hard edge of anticipation, as Lance held Keith’s hips against his. Keith’s body was like syrup against him, rich and dark and so so sweet. He was willing, his back bending at a mere suggestion, crowding and pressing against Lance like he could never get close enough.

 

Lance ran his hands down Keith’s muscled back, sighing into his mouth, then continuing down, slipping his fingers under the waistband of Keith’s jeans and boxer briefs. He gently stroked the skin there, just below the band, and when Keith exhaled hard and fast, he ventured further. Thankfully Keith’s jeans were pretty stretchy, so it wasn’t hard to end up with a handful of Keith’s bare ass. Lance moaned at the weight and feel of it in his hand: firm with muscle and the slightest tantalizing give.

 

Lance pulled away again before he got too carried away, and Keith took the opportunity to try and do away with their remaining clothes, going straight for the sleek black button on his jeans, probably about to try to rip them off his legs at the speed of light, while still wearing his boots.

 

Lance stilled Keith’s hands before he could get anywhere. “Hey, can I undress you?”

 

“Okay, but hurry up,” Keith said, his hands falling away. He watched in fascination as Lance got on his knees beside him, and ran his hand up Keith’s boot with reverence. Lance wanted to burn the feeling of the different textures into his brain; the smooth panels on the boots, his curved thighs and his crotch in those painted-on jeans. He could feel the firm shape of Keith’s erection angled up beneath the material; the mere sight of his hands touching it sent a special thrill plummeting down his stomach, going right to his dick, but it was Keith spreading his legs wider, reacting to Lance’s touch that made Lance moan. It was the plain evidence of Keith’s desire, and it was all for him.

 

He opened the subtle, hidden button of Keith’s jeans carefully, sliding the zipper down slowly, waiting with bated breath until he could see the shape of Keith’s erection through the triangle of boxer-brief that was slowly revealed. He found it an impossible task to resist his urge to instantly bring his face down to mouth at it, despite the fabric barrier. Keith’s reaction was instantaneous, letting out a luxurious _ahh_.

 

“Damn, you smell so good, Keith.” It was probably embarrassing how much Lance liked that masculine scent, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at all.

 

“You’re so— _ahh_ —weird,” Keith said, gasping.

 

“It’s not weird, it’s science, like pheromones or some shit,” Lance explained, still refusing to move from where he was breathing Keith in deep.

 

Lance reluctantly removed himself from Keith’s crotch; the rest of his body also needed attention. He crawled back over to Keith’s feet, tracing Keith’s perfectly shaped leg as he went. He carefully picked up one heel, and, supporting Keith’s calf gently, eased off the boot inch by inch. It came easily. Lance leaned over the side of the bed and placed it down carefully before moving on to the second leg. He took his time, softly rubbing against the contours of Keith’s arches, sinking deeper, focused completely on Keith’s languid body.

 

After the boots were both neatly put away, Lance quietly moved on to Keith’s mismatched socks, rolling them down his heels, marveling at the delicate bones he was uncovering, tracing their contours. Cradling both naked ankles in his palms, he gave them each a kiss, punctuating the end of his indulgence. His lips still in contact with Keith’s skin, he looked up to see Keith watching him with his characteristic intensity. That moment of seeing and being seen—being seen like that—(at worship)—Keith’s body offered up for his consumption in jeans and nothing else—it made Lance feel like he needed to shed skin. Like his insides were too large to contain. He had to—

 

Lance surged back up between Keith’s legs, pressing a few chaste kisses onto his quivering stomach before starting to roll his tight jeans off his hips. There was something unbearably sexy about sliding his hands inside the waistband, and around Keith’s soft hips, and being allowed to explore, to feel his way along Keith’s legs, and around the backs of his thighs, all the while being watched by those eyes.

 

“Lift up for me,” Lance breathed into the silence. Keith complied, arching his back up in a bridge that shouldn’t have been as graceful as it was. Lance wanted to taste that taut bow. Paint a line with his tongue from Keith’s head to his toes. Instead, Lance pushed the jeans over the curve of Keith’s ass, and peeled them off his legs one by one, painstakingly arranging Keith’s limbs, and holding them delicately as he worked.

 

As soon as Keith was down to just his boxers, his patience had clearly come to an end. He was up and against Lance in a flash, fumbling with his belt, an almost comical frown of concentration on his face. Lance laughed as Keith grumbled impatiently. He couldn’t help but kiss Keith’s scrunched up forehead, tucking a strand of Keith’s hair behind his head so he could actually see what he was trying to do.

 

When Keith finally managed to free the end of Lance’s belt, he proceeded to yank at it hard enough to make Lance sway. Lance made a goofy _whoa_ , pretending to be a boneless ragdoll, which only fake-incensed Keith further while he was trying to get the metal rod out of the belt’s hole.  

 

Keith finally got it on his third try. “See, that’s how a master does it, you could probably stand to take some notes, Lance,” he said with a joking, smug expression while making quick work of Lance’s button and zipper. Not allowing Lance any chance to retort, he pushed Lance’s jeans and boxers down in one tug.

 

Lance got the rest of the way out of his clothes reluctantly. “But where’s the allure, Keith? The mystery?” Lance said pouting exaggeratedly.

 

“Fuck mystery,” Keith said with a triumphant grin that dissipated as soon as their eyes met properly. They both inhaled, hard.

 

Within the space of a second, they collided, pressed into each other’s contours like clay, mouths locked fierce, going down together, refusing to part. Before Keith properly settled, Lance yanked Keith’s boxers off him, flung them somewhere, and swallowed him down in one smooth motion. Keith gasped in surprise, his hips lifting up, chasing, pushing himself further into Lance’s mouth. Lance gratefully received; the shape, the soft skin, the round edges, and the space Keith’s dick took up in Lance’s mouth was sublime. It made him feel close to Keith, close to his source. At once able to give Keith pleasure, and be completely surrounded and invaded and overwhelmed. To be powerful and completely submerged and devoted at the same time.

 

After checking that the lube was still in reach, he took Keith’s hips in his hands, wrapping his palms around the bones and skin with delighted possession, holding him down while his mouth took its leisurely time. He was indulging himself, feeling out the form of his cock, lovely and round and perfect—how soft his foreskin was, kissing the tip sweetly—listening for all of the different sounds that Keith made above him, storing them away for later days. Keith was so unrestrained, letting Lance hear every reaction, see and feel all. He showed Lance the transcendent beauty of his entire being, and Lance almost didn’t know what to do with it, much less the knowledge that he might be the person chosen to receive it.

 

Keith pulled him back up by laying a palm on Lance’s cheek; a subtle suggestion—and Lance went easily, crawling up and lying down on his side next to Keith, their bodies returning to each other in an instant. It was a different kind of sexy, feeling Keith’s skin along his entire body. It was lighter somehow, but more intimate, with just their desire for each other between them. He slid his hand back down over Keith’s naked thigh and hooked it back up, kissing him sweet, and then not so sweet. But even not so sweet had the lightness of knowing and understanding. There was no pretending, no hiding from each other now; there was only clarity and truth and trust. He saw it in Keith's eyes when he looked at him, and he felt it when he kissed him.

 

Lance stroked Keith’s lower back, light and soothing. “You ok?” He asked, nosing at Keith’s cheek and hairline.

 

“Yeah,” Keith sighed, squeezing Lance tight in his embrace to punctuate his answer, bringing his knee up higher.

 

Lance moved lower, along the sweet curve, sliding slowly towards the soft, hot skin between Keith’s cheeks. Keith let out a quick, stiff gasp at the contact. Lance stilled immediately, kissing Keith shallow and static, rubbing his lower back in shallow circles with his other hand, giving him the space and time to adjust to the proximity and the instinctive nerves that come with letting someone touch you there.

 

“Good?” Lance asked after a second. Keith hummed in assent, relaxing into the touch. Lance started moving his fingers lightly, circling, and Keith started making small, punched out, affected noises, completely given over to the moment. It was an unexplainable feeling, being allowed to touch him like this, and able to make him unafraid.

 

Lance reached for the lube, and the room fell silent, with just the sounds of Keith’s breathing, and the rustle of the bedsheets and Lance’s clumsy fingers as he tried to get the pump on the bottle to cooperate behind Keith’s back. Once he finally got the nozzle unlocked and his hands free enough to get a few pumps of the substance onto this index and middle fingers, he looked down and caught Keith’s laughing eyes.

 

He slid the lube around on his fingers to warm it up. “I’ll tell you when I do anything ‘kay?” Lance whispered.

 

“Yeah,” Keith’s voice was already gravelly and wrecked, but Lance could still hear the gratitude in it.

 

Keith held his breath and Lance’s gaze, waiting for Lance’s fingers to return to where they had been previously—letting it out in a long vocalized breath when Lance finally touched him. His fingers circled, fingertips applying enough pressure to feel Keith’s body give, but not enough to breach it. Lance wanted to watch Keith’s face as he touched him, watch him get worked up slow.

 

Keith’s hands were around Lance’s neck, in his hair, pulling, and he was gasping, and tightening his leg’s vise on Lace’s hip. And all the while, his black eyes were open, allowing Lance to see every reaction, every feeling, bending Lance to their will with the gravitational pull of a celestial body.

 

Lance was the one who closed his eyes first, moving closer to speak into Keith’s ear. “One, okay?”

 

“Mmh,” was the noise Keith made in assent.

 

After one last stroke, making sure the lube was spread out, Lance pressed in gently, and Keith gave him a quiet groan. He felt the soft give, then the strong resistance, the oppressive heat around his middle finger, how thick the muscle seemed, how strong, and went slow, slow, slow, against his impulse to feel more of him, now.

 

He pulled out and wrangled the hand attached to the arm trapped under Keith, into applying a bit more lube to his fingers. He kissed Keith’s neck as signal and pressed in a bit further, barely getting past his first knuckle. Keith had pulled back to kiss him, hanging on to Lance’s bottom lip like he was holding his hand, and Lance could feel the lingering tension in Keith’s body.

 

Lance pulled back so he could look at Keith properly. “Hey...” he whispered, pulling out slightly, “relax, I’ve got you.”

 

“I _am_ —” Keith started before Lance kissed his cheek to silence the protest.

 

“Just exhale for me, baby, okay?”

 

“Yeah—okay” Keith conceded and proceeded to do just that.

 

Lance slid his finger in to around his second knuckle, far enough that he could reach Keith’s prostate despite his other fingers bending awkwardly at the angle.

 

Keith inhaled and exhaled sharply. “Urgh, yea—h,” he groaned.

 

“Feel good?” Lance asked against Keith’s bared throat.

 

“Mhmm, yes, yeah—” Keith said, head thrown back.

 

Lance started moving his finger, slick and hot, the resistance still oppressive. “Roger that,” he whispered into Keith’s skin before capturing his lips again. Keith kissed him back like he was drinking from his mouth and lips, moving his body in sync with Lance’s movements, pushing Lance deeper and deeper, pressing up against Lance’s body on the downbeat. Lance could feel him consciously exhaling between ravenous kisses, and he was—he was so—it was a miracle, it was an insane miracle, to be touching the inside of Keith’s body like this. He could feel Keith’s pulse in his fingers, in the most private place a person could imagine.

 

“You ready for a second?” Lance mouthed against Keith’s lips.

 

Instead of answering intelligibly, Keith hitched his leg up even higher on Lance’s torso, giving him more access.

 

Two was a tight fit that crushed Lance’s fingers. He stilled, staying shallow for a while so Keith could get used to the stretch. When he felt Keith consciously relax, give increased, and he inched his fingers in, bit by bit. He swallowed all of the gasps and groans Keith’s mouth made. He was hungry for it, desperate to taste his pleasure. Desperate to kiss his face, desperate to see him react, desperate to feel his body hugged tightly against his.

 

“More?” Lance asked, after applying more lube and easing two fingers back in with greater ease.

 

“Uh, wait—can we—can we do two for a bit longer?” Keith asked breathlessly.

 

“‘Course, babe, anything.” Lance kissed his temple and his nose, and they continued working up to it together, slowly, adding more lube until the glide was easy, and Lance could spread his fingers against the overwhelming resistance.

 

“Another one,” Keith said, a sweaty, loose, wild thing against him now. Lance obliged. He bunched his fingers up, and slowly worked them in about half-way, watching Keith’s gasping mouth with rapt attention as he moved. When he took them back out, and experimentally tried one and then two fingers, they slipped into Keith slick and easy, and so soft. God, he was hard, he and he wanted Keith so badly he could burst into tears.

 

“Ready or do you wanna—?”

 

“Ready.” Keith cut in, sounding certain and authoritative, despite already looking debauched, his whole body blushing with heat and arousal.

 

“You—I want to make you feel so good.” The words tumbled out of Lance’s mouth in a rush.

 

“You are—already,” Keith said haltingly, his face telling Lance that there were things he wanted to express that weren’t coming through right. But Lance understood and slid their lips together to seal the reciprocal sentiment into Keith’s heart too.

 

“Do you wanna be on your back?” Lance asked, and Keith tipped over in answer, managing to look cool and exude ineffable confidence and power, despite the fact that he was naked and his legs were spread. Lance moved down to kneel between them and gave Keith’s thigh a loving peck, tapping his inner thigh in warning before he slipped two fingers inside. Lance tried his best to target Keith’s prostate more sharply than was possible in their previous position, and at Keith’s resulting cry that had his chest rise up as if electrocuted, Lance couldn’t resist giving Keith’s cock some attention too.

 

Before he could open his mouth, Keith said, “L-a-ance, I want you—please—”

 

Lance could never resist him.

 

He scrambled to get lube all over his dick, taking the time to spread a bit more onto Keith, making sure to get it everywhere, to be safe. He looked up at Keith, lying prone but poised, one arm flung over his eyes, breathing hard, and thought—

 

Lance moved the arm to uncover Keith’s face. He had to convey to Keith the feelings that he was responsible for producing within Lance’s core. The sheer extent of them. Trying harder than he could ever remember to embody the truth in his words, to summon his guts, and offer them up, Lance said, “I love you so much. It’s—it—wrecks me.”

 

Keith’s eyes bored into his. “Fuck me, Lance.”

 

“Okay,” Lance said quietly. He gave his dick a few strokes before scooching Keith up onto his thighs and guiding it down towards Keith’s ass. He used his thumb to cautiously press the head of his cock into the give of Keith’s body, looking up to gauge his reaction. Keith’s eyes were closed, his mouth parted slightly, breathing heavy. Lance took the sight as a sign to continue and so he pressed forward. Their first time fucking like this, Lance just about came from the sight and feeling of being Keith inside alone, and he wasn’t far off today either.

 

Suddenly, Keith screwed up his face and gasped.

 

“You okay?” Lance pulled out an inch. The gasp had sounded more bad than good.

 

“Uh, yeah, good, just a bit too fast,” Keith said.

 

“'Kay, let's just hang out here for a bit.” Lance kept his cock in place and ran his hands all over Keith’s body; his dips above his hips, his lean legs, his undulating stomach. He kissed the inside of Keith’s knees and kneaded the backs of his thighs as Keith gave himself a few strokes with his eyes pressed shut.

 

“Okay. Try to move again?” He said panting after a few seconds, messily clutching at Lance’s hand at his side.

 

Lance pushed in a bit slower this time. Keith was so tight, it was probably the best thing that he’d ever felt. Keith groaned, head thrown back, one hand still on his dick, and the sight, the sight of Keith jerking off like that and Lance’s whole dick inside him—like inside Keith’s body, the whole thing—it was a lot—it was always a lot.

 

Lance hooked one of Keith’s legs over his shoulder and the other across the crook of his elbow and folded himself over Keith to give him a kiss. The move shifted Lance deeper and they both moaned in tandem at the sensation.

 

“You feel incredible Keith, I'm not coming right now, by the grace of God,” Lance said with a joking smile.

 

“Yeah…” Keith croaked, slightly dazed. “It feels really good, it’s…” Keith was clearly searching for words, “really nice,” he finished.

 

“Sick,” Lance said with what he hoped was a teasing grin, but was probably a lovesick smile. He gave Keith a short, shallow, experimental thrust, and a chaste kiss. Keith’s reaction was instantaneous; his eyes clenched and he let out a drawn out, guttural _ugh_.

 

“You like that,” Lance whispered.

 

“Yeah, do it again.” Keith’s voice was breathy.

 

Lance did not need to be told twice. He pulled out fully and pushed back in, continuing slow and deep, knowing Keith liked really feeling it. Lance watched his face in minute detail, watched his body react, his chest heave, his hand clench and unclench around his, his hair across the pillow, his perfect muscles flexing, his other hand stroking his dick in those unique short strokes he knew Keith liked to do when he wasn’t trying to get off in earnest. When he was just having fun.

 

“Fa—aster,” Keith demanded at some point, gathering Lance’s body close with his legs, hooking them around each other behind Lance. “I wanna kiss you.”

 

Lance crashed into Keith, kissing him with his mouth as wide as it went, with his tongue as deep as it went, pushing into Keith’s wet mouth while he fucked Keith fast and shallow. He couldn’t stop himself from punctuating every thrust with a hard groan, his arms wrapped tight around Keith’s back, clutching him close, hands spread wide and digging into flesh. Keith’s heels dug into Lance’s ass, giving not an inch, his arms around Lance in a desperate fold. Lance absorbed every grunt and every moan that Keith let out before it became too hard to keep their open mouths aligned, and their messy kisses landed everywhere in a wet slide. In this mix of lips and tongues and sweaty limbs, Lance found the bliss of an alignment of action and feeling. The certainty that his feelings, everything inside him that was Keith’s, was being acted out in its truest form.

 

“Lance, can we—can we turn around?” Keith panted against Lance’s cheek.

 

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Lance extricated himself and watched Keith roll over onto his stomach, immediately knowing the position Keith wanted. He traced Keith’s spinal erectors from his neck to his ass, and kissed his tailbone, before sitting across the backs of his thighs and guiding his cock between his cheeks again, spreading them with one hand. Jesus fucking Christ.

 

He slid in easy, and draped himself across Keith’s back, kissing his neck and moving his wayward hair. Keith turned his head so they could kiss each other, and that little movement made Lance feel so close to him. The idea that they both wanted to be connected like this no matter the angle, no matter the inconvenience, it made him want to kiss Keith from this moment until his dying day.

 

“Okay?” Lance asked, after kissing Keith’s neck and shoulder and sliding a pillow under Keith’s hips.

 

“Yeah, perfect.” Keith’s voice sounded taken apart into its constituent parts, cracking and wrecked.

 

Lance wound their hands together, tangling their fingers, and started fucking him in earnest, their mouths never leaving each other. Every point of contact between them burned with their combined heat and slid with sweat, but it was better for it, somehow. Wild, and so good. Keith’s breathing was labored and erratic, and he was trying to press himself into the sheets to get off desperately.

 

It probably wouldn’t be long before he overheated, so Lance pulled out and backed off. Keith understood immediately and got up on his hands and knees. Lance pushed back in instantly, fucking Keith like his life depended on it, but giving him the space to cool down. Now that Keith had the space to jerk off properly, he was louder than ever, his hair hanging around his face, his back trembling, making the kinds of noises that meant he was close. The angle was taking Lance to the edge way too fast as well, and he really wanted to come looking into Keith’s eyes.

 

Lance leaned forward. “I wanna see your face, Keith.”

 

Keith made a garbled sound and rolled onto his back so they were face to face, groaning when Lance entered him again.

 

“Hang on, baby,” Lance whispered.

 

Keith understood, hooking both of his legs over Lance’s shoulders, so Lance could bend him in half, with the leverage to grab his ass with his hands and fuck him, hard, while never losing eye contact. Watching Keith fall apart, give himself over right in front of his eyes, looking into his eyes, seeing every single reaction, every emotion in his eyes—it plucked a string deep within Lance. He didn’t know whether he might come right then, harder than he ever had before, or whether he might be moved to tears—or both.

 

“You close?” He asked.

 

“Yeah, but I wanna come together,” Keith breathed.

 

“Yeah me too, me too.” Lance’s voice was quiet, confessional. He released Keith’s body, Keith’s legs slipping down to hook around his waist again, and took his hand, holding it there, beside Keith’s head. And then, at a medium pace, not slow, not furious, he set a rhythm that brought them both to the brink, Keith touching himself between their bodies, breathing becoming more and more erratic, mouths open, sometimes kissing, eyes sometimes connected, sometimes hanging on, but that hand, always linked.

 

“I wanna see you come, Keith”, Lance gasped, and Keith’s face opened like a venus fly trap. It bloomed lush and deep, mouth wide, eyes wide, nostrils flaring wide, letting Lance see everything inside him in a suspended moment between them—before clamping shut. Keith came, clenching down fast and hard like a bear trap—and Lance was inside it, in all possible ways. Keith’s entire body slammed inwards, a collapsing star; eyes squeezed tight, teeth embedded in Lance’s shoulder, limbs, hands, chin, all wrapped around and hooked into Lance and pulling. All around Keith, and inside him, Lance let go.

  


Keith’s hold gradually slackened until Lance was able to pull out with a hiss and flop down beside him. Keith instantly turned into an immobile starfish. Breathing hard, his eyes half-lidded and trending downwards, he sleepily mumbled something Lance couldn’t parse. Lance kissed his shoulder, and leaned over to get some wipes that he suspected were somewhere in the bedside cabinet, and proceeded to clean them both up. He took care to be gentle around Keith’s ass as he removed the mess of lube and come and sweat that seemed to have managed to get into every crease and cranny between them. Keith’s body was completely unresponsive during the entire process. This was probably about as unfazed as Lance ever got to witness him, Keith being just about the most fazed person he’d ever known. Lance chuckled to himself at the joke and gave Keith’s ass a quick kiss as he finished the cleanup.

 

Lance managed to convince his body to get up and go out to the minuscule bathroom to dispose of the wipes, leaving all of the lights off, despite dusk having turned to dark. He returned to the bedroom to see Keith having not moved a single muscle, sprawled out and completely done in the soft black and blue shadow of night. Completely done and undone in this place, the one that started everything. And Lance was standing here, invited in, incorporated, part of the permanent story of Keith. Part of his history and part of his personhood.

 

He crawled into bed with Keith, cuddling up to his body, laying his head against his shoulder. They were both still incredibly hot and sweaty, and that’s what finally caused a reaction in Keith after long minutes of being completely dead to the world.

 

“Hrggghh—mmh—hot”, he managed and rolled his body away from Lance and onto his stomach. But before he threw his head back into the pillow, face first, he tilted his head up in Lance’s direction, his eyes still closed, in a sort of instinctive demand for a kiss. He looked like a newborn puppy, and Lance couldn’t think of anything thing he’d ever wanted to do more than give in to every single thing Keith had ever asked, and every single thing he still couldn’t ask for.

 

When he leaned over and gave Keith his kiss, Keith flung his arm out towards him, clumsily searching the bed beside him for something.

 

“Hmm?” Lance inquired.

 

“H—nndd.” He spoke right into the pillow.

 

Lance immediately complied, winding their fingers together tight, and Keith brought them against his mouth.

 

Lance, horizontal beside Keith, hand stretched over to where Keith was sprawled, thought he might never have been happier. It felt like he was always thinking that, every new minute, every new second he spent in Keith’s presence. Even when he’d been annoyed that Keith used his custom shampoo, instead of the one he’d gotten him especially. Even when Keith was hit or miss at respecting the hygiene rules of Lance’s room. Even when Keith sometimes thought he could make big decisions for him, out of his diamond-strength conviction that he had to do the right thing, no matter what it was.

 

Even then, especially then, even. Because every single one of those things was an invitation to burrow in, to excavate each other, to find out what elements they were each made of. And that, that work, the sight of each other, it created what they had together. It was what nourished this growing living thing between them.

 

Lance cleared his throat, and said into the room at a normal volume, “I love you.” Like a fact, a truth. “Keith, I love you.”

 

Keith opened his eyes sluggishly, sensing something fundamental. “Rrvv y’too,” he responded after a moment, “a—lot”. He gripped Lance’s hand tighter, kissed his knuckles, and sighed softly against Lance’s skin. Then he started lightly snoring.

 

I want to marry him, Lance thought, lying back, looking up at the ceiling.

 

And then, two years later, he did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed ♥
> 
> ☛ I'm [@king_froggy_](http://twitter.com/king_froggy_)on twitter and [@king-froggy](king-froggy.tumblr.com) on tumblr, come talk to me if you like, I love meeting new people!
> 
> ☛ The wonderful [Dee](https://www.instagram.com/tweedeez/), drew an amazing [piece for me of Keith on the fallen rocks](https://king-froggy.tumblr.com/post/185481718899/the-incredible-wonderful-dee-who-made-me-this). Check her art out, it's incredible!
> 
> ☛ [Maggie](https://twitter.com/magzipan) drew me the absolutely breathtaking pieces in the text, they're absolutely perfect.


	2. the simulator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who commented on the first chapter. Reading your thoughts and about how you connected with it emotionally was incredible. I want you to know that I wrote this fic for you. If you felt this story in your bones then it is for you.
> 
> ◦ To my wonderful friend [Angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend), who holds my hand and consults with me at all hours of the day, and without whom my writing would only be half as good.  
> ◦ To my incredible beta [Ran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/pseuds/Ran), for being the most encouraging, tireless, amazing, dedicated friend. The detail and care apparent in your suggestions make my work immeasurably better. Ran's just finished Part 1 of her excellent series [Bonded](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13482309/chapters/30914091), so please check that out if you're interested in complex emotional depictions of relationships, and want a sledgehammer to the heart.  
> ◦ To [Maggie](https://twitter.com/magzipan), for understanding my theories about magic. The only thing I can say is that the characters I write are the characters you draw.
> 
> ☛ The playlist for [Chapter 1 (the shack)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJncHEZ3URs&list=PLuqLKxI2tFQtzY6tNiMcrleTF6396RmQx).  
> ☛ The playlist for [Chapter 2 (the simulator)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jRNTpnBLM&list=PLuqLKxI2tFQuFzme6m2INygg32ZJT5B5C)  
> ☛ I realized I never linked to a shareable version of Maggie's art from Chapter 1. [Here it is on twitter](https://twitter.com/magzipan/status/1150143917435711488) and [here on tumblr](https://magimagali.tumblr.com/post/186573705043/i-would-never-he-said-his-voice-coming-from).
> 
> enjoy

“So, like, how does jerking off work when you’re ambidextrous?” Lance asked, his words slotting casually in between the dull thumps of the small rubber ball he was bouncing off the wall. No matter how hard Keith had been trying to remain focused on the task at hand—packing his clothes to take back to the castle—and not allow himself to be distracted by Lance, who was lying relaxed and expansive on his bed, his body reacted anyway.

 

Keith’s hands stilled, and his eyes snapped up to look at Lance, who was still bouncing and catching the ball, his quick hands alternating effortlessly. Lance didn’t let on in the slightest that he’d just taken the conversation from beating Pidge at some game, straight to beating off. 

 

Lance stopped throwing the ball as if sensing Keith’s gaze and lazily tipped his head to the left to look back at him, eyes gleeful, mouth devilish, one eyebrow raised, prompting. It only took one look, Keith thought. Lance could do anything with one look. His charms could rearrange the contours of the room around Keith, leaving him scattered and taken apart. The brittle control he had over himself evaporating, snapping, like magic. And now, the room was full of Lance— _ Lance _ , Lance on his bed, Lance thinking about him jerking off, and Keith, wide-eyed, at attention, under his spell.

 

Keith cleared his throat, trying to clear his mind enough to think of an answer to a question as weird, random and vague as the one that just came out of Lance’s mouth. “Um, normally, I guess?” He tried. 

 

Lance laughed quick and delighted. “No shit, Keith, I mean gimme the details, what’s the strat? Do you alternate? Is one hand better? Is one hand stronger? Does one hand have more  _ finesse _ ?” He punctuated the word with a complicated-looking bounce that involved two walls, and still managed to catch it in his left hand with a flourish and smirk. Keith stared at the snap of Lance’s wrist and his gentle effortless catch.

 

Keith honestly had never given it anywhere near the level of granular thought Lance was expecting. He didn’t even really know which hand he used most, but there was something about Lance, his enthusiastic eyes, the delight in his tone--like he couldn’t think of anything better than knowing every single detail about Keith--that made Keith want to answer.

 

“Um—” Keith said, before going to mime a jerking off motion, instinctively reaching with his left hand. “Left, I guess, mostly,” he concluded, hoping the answer satisfied.

 

Lance’s mouth fell open a fraction as he tracked Keith’s quick action, and he inhaled, sharp. “Cool, cool, cool, sweet,” he breathed out, and then a moment later: “so, like, if you  _ had _ to, like if a wizard suddenly froze your left hand into an ice block, you’d definitely be able to get off with your right, right?”

 

“I think if a wizard froze my hand in ice, getting off might not be my priority,” Keith joked, and tried to think back and remember the last time he’d touched himself and which hand he’d used.

 

“ _ Keith _ .” Lance put on the disapproving voice of a school teacher telling you to  _ quit goofing off. _

 

Keith’s lips quirked up at Lance’s exaggerated frown which wavered and cracked into a huge grin after a moment. Under the force of that grin, Keith felt put back together and solid. Deep roots connected in a forest instead of a translucent guest only tangible when he had something to do, to  _ add _ .

 

“Well I guess I don’t think the difference is that big because I don’t really remember it ever being an issue,” Keith said, his hands still resting idly on the pile of clothing in front of him.

 

Lance’s face instantly transformed back into that comical frown, the school teacher upgrading to a disappointed Vice Principal, and Keith couldn’t help but giggle. Lance had the irresistible power to pull Keith into his warm, silly orbit. He weaved an awning above and around Keith, made of charm and laughter and anticipation and challenging eyes and jokes and the kind of care and attention Keith didn’t even realize could exist—let alone feel like he deserved. Lance created it, conjured it up from nothing no matter his surroundings, and invited Keith inside its cover, into a little world of their own. 

 

When Keith accepted the invitation—as he always, always did—it draped itself around and into everything like a dreamy-sweet canopy, lending even the most mundane element a measure of magic. It was feather-light, and painted his life in twinkling gold, giving things a soft, gauzy quality, all edges rounded off, and all sharp drops leveled. There was a grounding sense of balance in it too—Keith felt secured in place with the knowledge that he was loved, he was  _ adored _ .

 

“Urgh,  _ fine _ , to answer your question, yes, I’d be fine getting off if my left hand was in a block of ice because of a wizard,” Keith finally concluded with a mocking smirk, predicting in advance Lance’s delight at the indulgence.

 

Lance’s grin curled back onto his face tenfold. “Cool, I was just checking, ‘cause you know you gotta be prepared for all possibilities.” Lance’s goofy face mellowed into a small smile, and continued, “I wouldn’t want you to be left with blue balls when you’re suddenly ambushed by a hand-freezing wizard, y’know?”

 

“ _ Yeah _ , definitely, good thinking, Lance,” Keith said, in his best fake serious voice.

 

Lance’s lips turned down into a half pursed, quivering smile, like he was suppressing a physical reaction, his eyes shining with the effort. 

 

“ _ Did you know _ , I trained myself to be ambi- _ sex- _ trous when I was like, 16 for this exact reason?” Lance asked, punctuating the  _ sex _ with dramatically raised eyebrows in a way that implied he was very proud of the pun. “I guess I thought it might come in  _ handy _ one day, you know, to have the full  _ tool _ kit.” Lance’s face beamed at him, and Keith felt Lance’s energy crackle along his skin and diffuse into the atmosphere around them.

 

“So, would you call yourself a multi-use tool then?” Keith couldn’t help smiling while he said it.

 

Lance fell silent. “ _ Damn, _ ” He said after a second. His eyes were wide, and his mouth gaped like he’d been ambushed by the rejoinder. He then brought his hands up to his lips like he was taking a moment to reflect on the burn. 

 

“Game respects game, Keith,” he said after another second, giving Keith a stoic, appreciative nod. 

 

Lance managed to keep up the serious expression for a few beats before cracking back into a delighted, sly smile. “While I sure am a tool with many uses, this tool only has a single  _ user _ .” Lance winked at him. “Well, two actually, if you wanna get technical about it, but you’re my favorite user.” Lance gave him a smile that was at once playful and genuine.

 

And before Keith knew it, the rug was pulled, the context shifted with a snap of Lance’s fingers. He was left dizzy with how quickly Lance could twist and turn words, play within the rhythm and meaning and feeling of conversations, how he could wrap him up and spin him around effortlessly. “Yeah,” Keith said, not really knowing what he was trying to convey, attempting to keep his face from being too embarrassingly, transparently flummoxed-looking, and probably failing. He  _ was _ Lance’s only one. And that thought was big, so big he couldn’t think it for too long before it threatened to consume him whole.

 

Instead, Keith turned his attention back to his laundry, while Lance chuckled in triumph, going back to throwing his bouncy ball.

 

Keith bundled up his last shirt and tried to stuff it down the side of the almost-full shirt compartment of his trunk, but it was proving particularly stubborn and in need of a hard enough shove to get it wedged in properly. He was just about in a position to leverage his body’s weight for the purposes of jamming it down long enough so he could slam down the compartment lid when the rhythmic thump of Lance’s ball stilled behind him. 

 

Unable to deny Lance a look, Keith met his gaze and found him looking at him with that twisty smile that meant he was privately amused by something, usually incomprehensible to Keith. “Need any help over there?” Lance asked, sounding strangled.

 

Keith gave him a general all-purpose grunt, because while he was certain that given the right pressure and timing he could make the shirt fit, he knew Lance was going to be watching him try—the prospect of that mouth, that smile, those blue eyes twinkling with mirth, with  _ pleasure _ , watching him flail, made his neck hot preemptively. Also, he could probably get the timing right with another pair of hands.

 

“M’kay, Keithy, let’s see what’s got your mullet in a bunch,” Lance said with a small smile, getting up off Keith’s bed to lope over and plop down beside him smelling fresh and boyish and dangerous.

 

“Nothing’s in a bunch, Lance, I just can’t get this last one to get in here. Maybe if I push, and you slam the lid down right when I pull away, we can…” Keith trailed off as Lance gently eased the shirt in question out of his hand, unwinding it from the twisted roll Keith had wound it into.

 

“It looks like literally everything is in a bunch Keith, more than I could ever have imagined.” Lance looked between the crumpled shirt and the trunk with something between amusement and horror. “What do you call this—this—I can’t even come up with a good joke ‘cause it’s just total madness, Keith!” 

 

Lance proceeded to remove a few of the shirts scrunched in on the top of the crate, smoothing them out, before peering back inside. “Jeez,” he said, hands stilling, “this, this, I mean, I—this needs a fundamental rethink, what you’ve got here is a just a glorified  _ pile in a box _ … I mean, this is gonna crease everything, Keith!” Lance’s voice rose in pitch along with his dramatic outrage.

 

Keith was baffled by the offense his packing methods had caused. Only Lance would care about correct folding techniques or whatever when they were literally going to space where the concept of creased clothing meant even less than it did on Earth. “It’s more efficient this way,” Keith argued. “Clothes take up less space when you roll them up.” It was something he’d learned through trial and error.

 

“But at what  _ cost _ —” Lance joked, throwing his hands up to the heavens as if asking for assistance in this trying time. Keith didn’t see a problem with his method, but the way Lance seemed to be invested in improving every single aspect of his life, no matter how minute, made Keith feel untouchable. 

 

If he dwelled on that any longer, though, it would make him want to give in and let Lance do whatever the hell he wanted with the packing thing, just so he could see him light up and say  _ hell yeah, let’s get into it _ , while rubbing his hands like a cartoon villain—and nothing would ever get done if he submitted to those urges.

 

Keith interrupted Lance before he could truly settle into his tirade. “It can’t get creased. It’s in a roll, so there are no edges to crease it.”

 

Lance’s face froze in place for a couple of seconds, taking time to process Keith’s statement, and then went through a rapid-fire series of expressions that Keith tracked with fascination. He started with a confused grimace, stretching out into a comical frown with his eyes squeezed tight, then he wrenched his eyes wide, raising his eyebrows into his hairline and blinked rapidly—before finally freezing for a second time, taking a deep breath, and returning to his twisty suppressed smile.

 

“Wow, um. I’m speechless? That’s—you just invented a new genre of wrong? History was just made I think?” Lance chuckled a little helplessly, sounding genuinely confused. “Yeah, holy— —that’s a whole ‘nother level of Keith-science.” 

 

“Yeah? And what’s Lance-science? The science of being a dumbass, or what?” Keith shot back, having moved on to bundling up his jeans while Lance was still buffering. He couldn’t articulate it but he loved interacting with Lance, was giddy with it. He loved the bowstring of energy pulled taut between them, keeping him on his toes, and the way they had to read each other, know each other, to intuit when to pull and when to yield to keep the string from snapping or slackening. But it was so  _ easy _ , so natural—that sweet tension, that perfect balance between showing off, and showing each other how much they understood each other.

 

“Almost, but not quite.” Lance was back, grinning at him. “The definition is actually: being correct about 99% of the time.” Lance started mechanically folding up the shirts that were lying in a pile around him, and neatly placing them inside the crate.

 

Keith snorted, watching his long fingers move along the seams of the fabric. “And the 1%? What’s that? All of your laundry folding opinions?”

 

Lance looked up from his work with a twinkle in his eye and that smirk that spelled Keith’s doom. “Nope, it’s actually that entire time I spent thinking I wasn't into you, obviously.” His smirk grew, somehow. “I’m only human.” 

 

Keith didn’t know what to do with that one, because that was Lance yanking the string, and Keith yielding completely, falling right into his arms. The thought—of Lance being interested in him, stuck on him, for as long as he always claimed to have been—was hard for him to understand, and comprehend as reality. 

 

“Well, it doesn’t even matter if I'm right or wrong, because wearing stuff makes it crease anyway. So what’s the point in trying to keep it uncreased, if it’s just a pointless step?” Keith said instead, trying to explain properly.

 

Lance stared at him, completely immobile until his face melted into that small twisty smile. “You know what? You’re right, Keith, you’re right. That makes total sense.” Lance shuffled towards Keith on his knees and insinuated himself into Keith’s personal space. “Your method is far superior, please never stop doing it, okay?” Lance’s smile broke into a huge, warm, glowing grin, his eyes bright, and he closed the few inches of distance between them and pressed a kiss to Keith’s mouth. “I love you so much, Keith. I love you, and every single 100% correct statement you’ve ever made.” He finished it off with one more quick kiss before scooting back to his folding.

 

Keith looked down at his hands, thinking about that small smile from earlier. That lopsided twisty smile that said  _ I can’t believe you’re real _ . Most of the time, Keith didn’t really know why it was doled out, what it was about him exactly that elicited it. It always came as a baffling surprise. This time, it was his messy packing, which seemed to annoy Lance one moment, but somehow warranted blinding adoration a moment later— 

 

Keith decided he wasn’t going to question it.

 

Instead, he leaned over and stroked the hair and soft skin at Lance’s temple with his thumb, hoping to convey his helpless gratitude. His thanks, for everything, always. Lance looked back at him and made a shivery, cute little  _ mhh _ sound, but his eyes were shiny and serious. Like wet stripped stone—just the bedrock, the essence.

 

“I love you too, Lance,” he whispered.

  
  


*

  
  


Lance ended up in the same position as Keith had been, with one stubborn shirt that wouldn’t fit in the compartment. 

 

“Shut up,” Lance said with a pout and no bite before Keith could get a word in. “It’s the principle of it, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Keith replied with a playful smile, moving to help close the lid while Lance crammed the shirt in.

 

Despite the smallness of the task, Keith immediately felt them slotting into their familiar team rhythm with each other while they carried it out—the one that was forged in the years they spent working together, barely having to utter a word, communicating by gestures and gaze alone. 

 

Once Keith successfully slammed the lid down, Lance jumped up and pumped the air in triumph. He completely forgot their previous debate and roped Keith into a hard, sharp high five. 

 

“Nice!” Lance said when the clean crack of their hands rang out, giving Keith a blinding smile. There was something so painfully endearing about how excited Lance got about the smallest of things they did together like he couldn’t get enough of Keith in any possible way, and it pulled a wild grin out of Keith.

 

“Very nice,” Keith said and sat back down and got to work on his clothes, determined to finally get the rest of his stuff packed away so they would have time to play the new Killbot Phantasm with Hunk and Pidge before dinner.

 

Instead of going back to lounging on any available surface, Lance elected to sit down and wrap himself around Keith’s back like a koala. He gave Keith’s torso a quick squeeze, accompanied by a  _ boop  _ noise like he was announcing his presence. As if Keith could or would ever lose track of Lance in a room. He was infinitely more likely to lose the room in Lance. 

 

Keith snorted and clenched his core, trying his best to continue packing, but he could feel himself reacting to Lance’s proximity. His body wanted to crumble into him, totally dissolve, and give Lance all of his attention. To turn around and kiss him, to lean back into his chest, touch his thighs, reach into his hair and around his neck and dive under— 

 

But Keith pushed himself through the impulse and the fog he wanted badly to step into. Away from the feeling of Lance’s breath on his neck—away from the pressure of Lance’s thighs bracketing his hips—away from the feeling of his hands resting against his stomach—away, away, and towards the task at hand, and into the mechanical routine.

 

“Mhh...” Lance whispered after a period of fidgety silence that Keith had managed somehow to weather, sliding his fingers along Keith’s stomach. “Sorry, I know I’m distracting you, I just really wanna touch you.” And in an instant, the fortifications he’d barely put up were decimated.

 

Because the problem, the  _ difficulty _ wasn’t just his presence, it was  _ what he was always doing and saying _ . Lance kept hugging him tight and touching him lightly, biting his shoulder, brushing against him, nosing into his hair, kissing his neck. And all of it, he’d pushed past, somehow, but  _ this _ —the way he just said things like that, and how the bare truth seemed to infuse every word, curling into Keith’s ear and trickling down his spine like smooth syrup—it had him under its spell instantly. 

 

He grunted, hastily throwing in his last jacket, and easing himself out of Lance’s hold before he could get sucked in completely. “I’m nearly done Lance, just gotta get my stuff from the bathroom.”

 

“Okay,” Lance said. Without Keith’s body as a mold, Lance sprawled across the floor, looking up at him with an unguarded expression that said  _ I want nothing more than to make you happy.  _

 

The image of that expression was what stayed with Keith while he gathered his stuff in the bathroom. His face was upside down, eyes blue and yearning to provide and to serve.  _ Anything, _ they always said.

 

He started his tour of the bathroom at the mirror, taking his blue toiletry bag and dumping everything around the sink inside, before doing a sweep of the rest of the room. Most of the items he picked up were fancy products like moisturizer, a special extra shine shampoo and his really good electric toothbrush that Lance had instructed him to use, and they all felt weighty in his hands. Their weight, their clunky physicality, implying the inherent importance of their user. They were important items because it was important for Keith to take care of himself, and Keith was important. Lance had tried so hard to make him believe it.

 

If he was honest, he didn’t quite believe in half of them—his face and hair were fine before and didn’t seem much different now, though the electric toothbrush was admittedly far superior to what he’d had previously. 

 

Keith picked up the last of his things—the tube of fun purple and blue exfoliator, and the special washcloth he used for his face, both of which he quite liked. 

 

What it was  _ really _ about, was Lance. It was about the fact that Lance cared so much about Keith’s physical wellbeing, about his combination skin, his unconditioned hair and about whether he’d remembered to clean his damn tongue. He cared so much about every single aspect of Keith—and the feeling of that knowledge, the grasping of the fact of it, sent tremors through his foundations. All of Keith’s feelings for Lance were shook up like a snowglobe, at once, banging through him at a furious pace, like a storm trapped behind glass.

 

So he took them all with him everywhere, and used every single one.

  
  
  


When he emerged back into the bedroom, Lance was perched on the desk doing various trick shots with the bouncy ball. His movements were confident and elegant, and Keith recognized so many of the micro-motions in his hands from their time in the field—the way he flicked his wrist and the specific motion of his elbow mirrored his motion when righting his rifle after a successful shot, the way he always put a little spin on it. Lance had fingers that were so deliberate when they ran all over Keith’s body—fingers that were so patient when they worked inside him—fingers that were still and controlled on the trigger of a gun.

 

“I bet I can bounce it to hit every single wall and then hit your ass,” Lance said with a cocky smirk as Keith went to gather up any left-over items around the room. He almost certainly could, without interference, and there was a part of Keith that wanted badly to see him do it. He wanted to see that cold look on his face, watch the moment he quieted down and executed. But he had to play the game, of course.

 

“Yeah, right.” Keith snorted. He knew exactly what he was doing, pressing Lance’s buttons. Contrary to expectations, Lance loved to be challenged like this, by Keith—and loved rising to that challenge. When Keith glanced up to meet Lance’s eyes, it was there, that determined smirk, his eyes open and commanding.  _ Just watch me _ , they said.  

 

Lance broke eye contact and flopped back onto the bed, laughing, and started bouncing the ball again. 

 

Keith almost forgot about the whole thing completely, lulled by the grunt work and the beat of the ball against the wall. Lance was always very good at patiently lying in wait, distracting from the truth with chatter, tales and diversions, and then hitting you hard when you least expected it.

 

The thing was, however, that despite Lance being in his peripheral vision, Keith could pinpoint the exact moment Lance was going to strike. There was that slightly sped up intake of breath— the sound of Lance centering himself—that always preceded a calculated attack anywhere, and it cut through to Keith instantly. It had to. 

 

As soon as Keith heard it he knew, and reached behind himself, just in time to catch the ball flying at his backside with one hand. He flung it right back at Lance in one motion without a glance.

 

A moment later, Keith turned around to watch Lance’s reaction. Eyes blown wide, slightly shocked but overwhelmingly delighted.

 

“You thought you could snipe my ass that easily, Lance? I know every single one of your tells,” Keith said smugly, giving Lance a disbelieving eyebrow raise. He could make out a soft blush on Lance’s face. It was devastatingly cute, and the satisfaction Keith felt at having elicited it spread through his body like a low-level electric shock.

 

This time, Keith knew exactly what he did. He knew that some physical displays could get Lance worked up over him in an instant. 

 

Lance smiled at Keith. “‘Course you do,” he said softly.

  
  
  


When Keith was finally ready, they hauled his two crates of stuff down to the loading bay with the help of a small hybrid forklift that had been waiting outside Keith’s room. Lance had been packed and ready for what felt like eons, hanging around Keith like an annoyingly handsome mascot ever since.

 

“Shotgun me driving,” Lance yelled as soon as the crates were loaded up. He hauled himself onto the seat without waiting for Keith to respond.

 

“Wait, why do  _ you _ get to drive it when it’s  _ my _ stuff?” Keith said in protest, standing beside the vehicle lamely. He hadn’t gotten to drive Lance’s stuff—not that he cared, but Lance somehow always  _ made _ him care.

 

“Well, we all know you can’t be trusted with a big  _ load _ like this.” Lance gestured to the crates with a grin that was visibly struggling not to break into a laugh. “It’s a public safety issue, Keith. You’d go insanely fast and we’d end up dumping all of your utility belts and knife maintenance equipment on some innocent person’s head!”

 

Keith gave him a disbelieving glare. “I know how to compensate for—”

 

“I know you do.” Lance’s face shifted down a gear into a gentle smile. “Just—get on and hold me tight, alright?” 

 

Keith followed Lance’s instructions, his obligatory protests dying in the face of Lance’s request and the prospect of wrapping his arms around Lance’s slim waist.

  
  
  


And then Lance proceeded to fly them down the Garrison hallways at insane and dangerous speeds.

 

“You’re the one who’s a public safety hazard—” Keith spoke into Lance’s sweet, soft neck hair after a particularly precarious corner.

 

Lance laughed. “I’ve got it all under control, Keithy.”

 

Keith grumbled but had to admit that Lance  _ did _ . He could feel it in the machine beneath him. Lance was never actually in danger of tipping them over, managing the centripetal force with ease, despite the convincing veneer of chaos. And Lance probably knew Keith felt that. 

 

All of those veneers—interwoven layers of what was true and what was meant and what was said and what was known at any given moment—were beyond Keith normally. There were some small parts of the map that he could navigate using cornerstone truths as his guide; he could chart a course when the veneers intersected with the things he  _ knew. _ But most of the time, they existed beyond the spectrum of things he could make sense of. 

 

It didn’t matter though, if he understood or he didn’t. He always  _ felt _ it—the underneath, crackling between them alive and thick.

  
  


Keith held on tight, leaning into Lance and the next corner. He watched his hands glide along the curve of the wheel and thought about those hands holding him—touching his thighs, touching everywhere—right up until they reached the loading bay a few minutes later.

  
  


*

  
  


“Sup, nerds,” Lance said as they approached the long table in the engineering hangar after they dropped off Keith’s stuff.

 

Pidge was sat cross-legged on top of the table, meticulously wrapping a large worm-shaped object in what looked like inch-thick cling film. “Gentlemen,” Pidge said with a grave nod. 

 

“Hi,” Keith said, nodding back and leaning his hip against the workspace. He cast his eyes around the surface skeptically, baffled by the array of strange objects in front of him that Hunk and Pidge handled like it was second nature. The only thing he was certain of, was that they were in the process of packing them up—but everything else was beyond him.

 

“Hey, guys,” Hunk piped up from the floor. He was sitting half under the table, carefully peeling apart something that looked like a carpet made of floppy, glossy, bananas, and handing them over to Pidge one by one.

 

 “So… KBP?” Lance asked eagerly. He leaned over, draping himself across Keith’s shoulders and wiggling his eyebrows. Keith couldn’t see him doing the last part, but he just  _ knew _ .

 

“Ah, sorry, we aren’t done here yet, we had a few storage malfunctions, so we had to redo a lot of stuff…” Hunk said apologetically, carefully testing the bendability of one of the banana pieces. 

 

Keith’s face fell. Lance had bought the new Killbot Phantasm last week, and they’d all been waiting to play it as a group ever since. Keith had been too—He’d gotten pretty good at video games when he became a regular member of their chill sessions.

 

“Aw,  _ man _ —is there any way we could help you guys speed it up?” Lance groaned right into Keith’s ear. 

 

Keith made an aborted noise of protest. He’d been badly wanting to spend time with the gang— they’d all been busy with their errands and visits in their month on earth, and had barely found the time to hang out as a group—but he was not willing to risk their incredibly delicate machinery for it. He’d once accidentally flipped a cooling switch on something he didn’t even know had a cooling function, and the whole thing had caused a power outage while Pidge was doing some sort of important systems update. There was no way playing a game a few hours early was worth it.

 

Hunk prodded a pink jelly-like cube to his right. “Uh, we appreciate the offer, buddy—” 

 

“But no,” Pidge emphatically cut in. “It’s a bit of a delicate process that we’ve messed up once already without you two involved. Plus, I’m getting Outage Incident flashbacks.” She gave Keith a significant look. 

 

“How was I supposed to know?” Keith groused, automatically defending himself even though he definitely did not want to be roped into another complex packing operation. 

 

“We love you Keith, buddy,” Hunk said, looking up to meet his eyes with a smile. “Even though you did shave a few years off Pidge’s lifespan,” he added, laughing. 

 

Keith’s frown fell away instantly. It always did when his friends said things like that so easily—like it was the most obvious and unremarkable thing in the world that he was loved and he was deeply and irrevocably linked to them. That he was a part of the joint story of their friendship—woven in, surrounded, held tight. 

 

“Uh-huh,” Pidge said, matter of fact, failing to look up from her wrapping.

 

“Okay, fine, so we all know Keith’s a lovable menace who can’t be trusted, but what are we supposed to do now that we can’t all play KBP together?” Lance asked melodramatically, snaking his arms around Keith’s middle and perching his chin on his shoulder.

 

Keith closed his eyes for a second, feeling Lance surround him. He was always touching Keith—sometimes casually and sometimes deliberately—but always making the curves of Keith’s body his home—never straying too far, always returning to him.

 “Just go off and do some Lance and Keith stuff, y’know—like trying to see who can eat the most crackers or whatever,” Pidge supplied without a second's hesitation.

 

“ _ That _ —is an outrageous mischaracterization—” Lance immediately countered, still perched on Keith’s shoulder. “But if we  _ did _ , I’d fucking cream you Keith, and you know it.” Keith could hear the smirk in his tone and could feel his breath against his neck. “My mouth is exceptionally wet.” Lance’s eyebrows were definitely wriggling ridiculously again.

 

“Gross,” Hunk said under his breath. 

 

“Keith, kindly remove your boyfriend from my office,” Pidge said, sounding like the disgruntled police captain of a particularly exasperating precinct. 

 

_ My boyfriend _ , Keith thought. It had been true for months but it still made him giddy.  _ Lance and Keith, together. Boyfriends. _

 

Their friends mentioned the connection between them so casually—as if it were just a normal, obvious, everyday fact, and not a groundbreaking concept every time it came up—and it went to Keith’s head like a couple of shots of nunvil, scrambling his brain for a few gleeful moments. 

 

“No need, no need, I’ll escort myself out,” Lance said, totally unrepentant, a smug smirk still in place. “Later, dudes.” Lance sauntered out with a lazy wave.

 

“Pidge, Hunk.” Keith gave each of them a mock-serious nod that cracked into a smile when Hunk and Pidge waved and said goodbye. He turned to follow Lance out.

 

As soon as they were both back in the corridor, Lance turned to Keith. A look and a quirk of his lip were all it took to conjure back up the familiar forcefield that was alive between them when they were alone. It pulled Keith in, enchanted him, made him stupid and drunk on the receiving end of its spell. It was a focus that was specific to him, he knew. He was _the_ _one_ ; the only one Lance looked at with such rapt attention—with such unwavering interest—with such loud intentions and desires. And thinking about that—that undeniable _fact—_ drove heat through Keith’s body. The idea that someone like Lance—a person made of presence and personality and energy and heart—would be incapable of looking away from him. It floored him. 

 

In that moment, he couldn’t do anything but answer the call of Lance’s eyes, asking for him to come closer, to lean in. So Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s narrow waist and stepped into him.

 

Lance let his arms dangle off Keith’s shoulders casually, his mouth widening into a playful grin. “So, Kogane, how do you respond to my challenge? You know we gotta do the cracker thing now just to make sure—”

 

“No,” Keith said mildly, a contrast to how his bold eyes were looking right back at Lance. He held that gaze, held it steady and strong while inching forward until their noses bopped against each other.

 

“You didn't even let me finish,” Lance murmured in protest, his eyes half-lidded now, lips swaying towards Keith’s like waves yearning to taste a sandcastle just out of their reach.

 

Keith needed to let him. Give the waves their castle, close that last bit of distance between them and let himself dissolve under Lance’s soft hunger. His lips touched Lance’s—barely brushing. “I didn’t have to.” He lingered there. “I know all about your wet mouth, McClain.”

 

“Really? You like that?” Lance breathed, sounding captive. His tone was teasing but Keith could read the subtle plea for Keith to tell him he did.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “I like that.” Keith’s voice ground out of him like it had been aged in a cellar. 

 

Lance’s eyes fell shut and he let out a small airy  _ ah _ , as if letting the weight of Keith’s words slam down onto him with the pleasure and reverence he would a summer storm. 

 

It surprised Keith anew every time Lance gave him an unvarnished glimpse of himself. A glimpse without a joke to soften the blow—without a wink or a nod, or a single filter to make his reaction more palatable—and hide the terrifying vulnerability of feeling. 

 

It always felt like a shove to the chest—large and indelicate. It wasn’t the light happiness of hearing Lance land a particularly clever zinger, the prickling delight of humor and pride and attraction to a handsome quick-witted boy with a killer smile. It was a heavy, violent pull that swept through him like a seismic wave, unbound. A deep and ancient want for everything Lance was, and a forest fire of desire to do  _ anything _ for him.

 

Lance sighed softly and finally leaned into Keith fully, tilting his head gently, sliding against his mouth like a whisper. Keith could feel every quiver of Lance’s lips, every breath through his nose, and every gentle caress of Lance’s fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. 

 

_ Anything _ . Because though he didn’t always comprehend it, Keith could feel the power he had over Lance. It was mystifying to him in its magnitude, and so often inexplicable, leaving him baffled and in awe. It was also a puzzle that wanted to be solved, a thread winking at him to come on and  _ unravel  _ and  _ understand _ .

 

_ Anything _ . 

 

Something about the moment between them right then—the yearning kiss, the sterile lines of the garrison hallway, and the thread itching to be pulled—yanked at Keith’s memory. He remembered Lance’s easy words in the shack a week ago, about jerking off and impressing him and wanting to  _ fuck _ him— _ here _ — _ against the simulator he’d said _ —    

 

He still needed to solve that puzzle. Needed to finally understand the anatomy of the magic that twisted tight between them. Needed to understand Lance and what it was about Keith back then, and in this place— 

 

“We could check out our old classrooms before dinner,” Keith said, breaking the soft kiss, “and you could show me how it’s done on that famous simulator.” There was something inside him that knew that this was the place to start.

 

Lance’s face transformed into a familiar cocky grin. “Oh ho ho, you’re gonna regret that one, Keith,” he said. 

  
  


Lance’s mien and each syllable spoken sent a spike of adrenaline through Keith. He wasn’t sure what he was about to find, but he didn’t think he’d regret it.

  
  


*

  
  


Lance led Keith by the hand through the halls and across the glass skyway into the adjacent school building. The red afternoon sun lit up their path across in the color of the desert’s golden fire, and when Keith glanced at Lance next to him, he saw it burning there too. 

Delight and excitement flickered in his eyes, his handsome grin curling up his face when he noticed Keith looking. Lance was blooming; saturated and lush, radiating all color, all life, and so lovely it hurt to look. It hurt because what he saw was all of Lance, the distilled essence of him. His very core in that flash of teeth, that dimple, that warm curve of an eyelid in a moment that felt like an event horizon.

 

Keith couldn’t help his face splitting open into an answering smile for Lance. “What?” Keith asked even though he knew this one. Lance was happy with him for remembering what he’d said about the simulator.

 

“I, uh—” Lance replied, with a little secret smile that was no less blinding. “I just can’t believe I get to walk around the garrison like this, with  _ you— _ with Keith Kogane, my actual  _ boyfriend _ holding my hand—like it’s  _ normal _ .” He beamed. There was pride in the set of his shoulders, the height of his chest and his confident, long strides.

 

“It  _ is _ normal,” Keith said, not fully understanding what wasn’t supposed to be normal.

 

“No, I mean—I woulda  _ killed  _ back then, to get to be like this—” Lance bumped his shoulder into Keith’s lightly, “— _ to be yours.” _ He said the last part in a giddy rush, as if he couldn’t quite believe it, still.   

 

Keith’s mouth opened slightly, but he didn’t know what to say. Those last words Lance had uttered—Keith felt their undeniable truth in his bones. He felt Lance’s heart in them, blinding and gushing. And yet, and  _ yet _ , they didn’t make sense to him. “Are you  _ serious _ ? You wanted to be my— —my  _ boyfriend _ back then?” His voice cracked between boy and friend, and his outburst probably sounded gruffer than he meant it to.

 

“I mean…” Lance’s smile turned rueful. “I wouldn’t have admitted it— — _ ever _ — —even to myself—but yeah, pretty much?” Lance looked at him like it was that simple. Like the concept was easily understood and obvious now that he’d provided that caveat. 

 

A cold shower crashed through Keith and left him without his bones, the shock of a realization not quite realized making him momentarily lose feeling in his body’s scaffolding. Here he was, on the precipice of the knowledge that he’d been seeking, but this, surely couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be. He’d heard Lance talk about fantasies and attraction, but it had never seemed real, never serious. He’d assumed they were just words said for passions’ sake, embellished under the rosy influence of hindsight. But Lance wasn’t talking about sex. He’d said he wanted to be  _ Keith’s boyfriend _ . The concept was so alien it rearranged his organs and sent blood rushing through him, crawling and tingling up his limbs. “Oh,” Keith said.

 

“Yeah,  _ oh _ , dude.” Lance laughed, bumping his shoulder against Keith’s again, and dragging him through the sliding door that took them to their old locker area. Managing to relocate his body and corral it back into normal use, Keith followed. 

 

In front of the lockers, Lance lifted his arms, spreading them wide and making a couple of turns, as if he were in a meadow and not a school corridor. “Yeah… this is where it  _ all _ went down, huh?”

 

Keith snorted, suddenly ambushed by a memory. “You mean like that time you tried to do a hoverboard kickflip and then face-planted right onto some girl? Are  _ you _ the one who always went down?” He smirked, finding firm and familiar ground in their natural dynamic, before realizing he’d just given Lance the perfect setup.

 

Lance’s answering grin was triumphant and mischievous, but Keith had never seen anything more comforting. “Hell yeah I went down—I went down all the  _ time _ ,” he joked with one eyebrow raised. His face fell back into an earnest but playful smile a moment later, when he took Keith’s hand. “But seriously though, anything to impress, y’know?”

 

Keith remembered the shouts and laughs reverberating down the corridor when Lance tumbled and then, in an elaborate and loud scramble, landed on top of a girl in a pile of dropped books and bags. “The ladies do always love a good faceplant, huh?”

 

Lance’s forehead scrunched up a bit. “Who said anything about any ladies?” Despite the smile on his face, Lance’s eyes looked sober and prompting, willing the other shoe to drop.

 

Keith held Lance’s gaze—each passing second—each beat of his heart—sounding like the click of a roller coaster car taking him up to a precipice— 

 

And then Keith plummeted into dizzying nothingness. His eyes widened, his body hollowed out, because—was Lance was trying to tell him—was Lance saying—that it had been  _ Keith _ he’d always been trying to impress, even back  _ then _ ?

 

While the previous revelation had left him feeling topsy-turvy, this one rearranged gravity and the fabric of reality itself. It was like Lance was handing him a magnifying glass capable of reading the fine print and realizing he had been utterly misunderstanding every single interaction between them.

 

Lance wasn’t trying to impress girls, he was trying to impress Keith. And Lance wanted to be his boyfriend. A flood of memories engulfed him, making his vision swim, and his body sway.

 

Lance squeezed his hand, stabilizing him, and then plowed on with a soft, deliberate smile still on his face, and a hand smoothing down Keith’s arm. “I just can’t believe it took me so long to realize it all in the end. I mean in hindsight everything is freakin’ obvious, right?”

 

Keith didn’t think it had been obvious at all. Even when they’d started dating, he’d been kinda skeptical about whether Lance could possibly be interested in him.

 

Lance must have seen something in his expression because he launched back into it. “Hey! We all learn at different speeds, Keith. Some geniuses just take a bit longer to realize they’re geniuses, y’know?” Lance was beaming. He seemed so pleased to be standing there, holding Keith’s arm and bickering with him, like it was all he’d ever wanted—now—and  _ then _ .

 

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said, like rock moving over rock, looking at Lance’s bright face.

 

Lance kissed him easy but with feeling. “But I know now, right? I have you  _ now _ , and that’s all that counts,” he murmured against Keith’s lips. 

 

Keith was liquidated, absolutely decimated by the sheer force of honesty in Lance. He was still scrambling in the dark trying to make sense of what he’d just been told, but he instinctively knew what Lance was saying was true. But how could it be? 

 

Keith kissed back desperately, clinging to the certainty in physicality. Maybe if he crushed their bodies together, kissed him with enough conviction, he’d gain some understanding about what the fuck he’d meant to Lance this whole time.

 

Lance pulled back with a chuckle. “And  _ you _ have  _ me _ ,” he whispered and tucked a strand of Keith’s hair behind his ear, brushing the shell with his thumb, painfully gentle.

 

“And I have you,” Keith parroted, in a daze. 

 

Keith felt like he was on the precipice of something that might kill him. But he had to jump. 

 

“So.” Keith took Lance’s hand and tried to smirk. It probably came out more like a wobbly smile. “We should go check out all of our old classrooms, right?”

 

“Hell yes,” Lance said smiling eagerly, before tipping his head up to kiss Keith’s forehead. 

  
  


*

  
  


The first place they went to was their old homeroom class. It was the class Lance told him he’d first seen Keith. 

 

“Ok, so.  _ I _ was sitting here—” Lance gestured expansively to a table in the middle of the classroom, and then thought better of it and scampered over and slid into the seat, “and  _ you— _ ” Lance gestured towards Keith, making sure there was no mistaking that he was talking about him, “—walked in, y’know,” Lance gestured up and down like it was supposed to explain everything about how Keith walked, “like you do, like you owned the school or something.” Lance’s voice then changed, faded from the big one he used to tell anecdotes, to the more fragile, soft one he only used when he was showing himself fully. “I remember—” Lance wasn’t looking at Keith, standing in the doorway, anymore; he was looking down at his hands. “You looked right into my eyes, and you marched back there—like—like you were the main character in my  _ life _ .” He almost whispered that last part, but Keith caught it. “Even then—I was thinking:  wow. This moment is important.  _ He _ is gonna be important.” 

 

Lance stared at the table for a few more seconds, and then let his gaze wander back up to meet Keith’s. They looked and looked at each other, feeling the magnetic pull ebb and flow between them, unable to avert their gazes. Lance’s face was gentle and so open—slack, absolutely defenseless—and his eyes, they looked devoted, like he was ready to give Keith any piece of himself he wanted. 

 

Keith started to sway, the moment getting away from him, becoming too big and too wide, rising into his head. His mind felt like it was overflowing. There were too many things, none of them properly categorized or examined and—he felt… he felt…like he couldn’t grasp everything he knew and saw and felt and heard and remembered all at once. It wouldn’t come together, the story was too complicated— 

 

“Keith, are you okay—” Lance said, making to get out of his chair.

 

The worried intervention snapped Keith back into place. He could make it all make sense later, but he knew what to  _ do _ now. 

 

Keith held Lance’s gaze and took purposeful steps towards him.

 

Instead of passing him, as he had all those years ago, Keith sat down at the desk in front of Lance, moving the chair so he wouldn’t lose eye contact. He reached forward and took Lance’s hands and held them.

 

“I—” He started, clearing his throat and finally breaking eye contact to look at their joined hands, “I can’t really remember anything about that day. Except that I was—scared.” Keith looked back up. Lance’s face was still so open and understanding; protective. “I was scared of messing up and disappointing Shiro. I knew I was going to mess up, so I… so I was never really  _ there _ . ‘Cause it’s easier giving up something you don’t know, than something you do…”

 

“Hey,” Lance said, hands squeezing tight, his voice like a blanket around Keith. “Hey.”

 

Keith cleared his throat. “Lance, I just—I never knew you were interested in me for so long, and I’m trying to work it out in my head right now— —I know what you said stuff about thinking I was attractive and having fantasies and stuff, but I thought—I didn’t think you actually meant y’know—I mean I thought you  _ hated _ me back then—I thought it was only, y’know when we started dating that you liked me like  _ that _ . You—you—” Keith couldn’t finish.

 

Lance’s eyes were blown wide open and tender, his mouth open a tiny bit. “Oh my god, Keith,” Lance breathed. “Baby.” Lance stroked his thumb across the backs of Keith’s hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—I know this must be hard to get, but I… I just admired you. All along. So much.”

 

Lance sighed heavily, his eyes drifting off to land somewhere to Keith’s right, lost in thought, and silence fell between them. 

 

Keith’s stomach churned. Sitting in the silence was threatening to spin him into orbit, making his vision swim, overloaded. He focused on the grounding physicality of Lance’s hands within the protective clams his own hands made around them and squeezed. Lance squeezed back hard and steady, like he was conferring to Keith the fundamental love and comfort and deep connection in their bond.

 

Lance started speaking again in a soft voice. “You know, I’ve  _ always _ felt different. Always. And most of my teenage years were spent trying to cover up for that fact. From myself, mostly, it turns out.” He made a weak attempt at a chuckle, eyes returning to Keith’s, serious and unvarnished. Keith understood feeling different, feeling apart in some intrinsic way that he couldn’t even define for himself. His heart ached for Lance.

 

“And  _ you _ , you were just—God, as soon as I saw you, and looked into your eyes, I felt branded.” Lance gently transferred one of Keith’s hands over so they were both wrapped around one of Lance’s, and he could run his newly free hand through his hair. Lance’s hand stilled on top of his head, gripping and fiddling with his hair absently, and he let out a long breath. Keith watched the details of his motions, trying to stop his twisting stomach from burning up through his chest and into his eyes. 

 

“Because before—before you, it felt like it all might have just been a mistake, a misunderstanding. But now. Now it was overwhelming and inescapable, and—” He broke off, eyes drifting off again. Keith’s breathing picked up, because—because—he’d been Lance’s— _ awakening _ . He focused hard on the freckle Lance had just above the webbing between his thumb and index finger and traced a line across it with his thumb. Backward and forward, trying to calm himself.

 

“—So I guess I fought that feeling. I tried—I tried to transform it into something else, I tried to smother it and shape it into a different thing, but—” Lance brought the hand in his hair back down to Keith’s pliant hands, holding them tight. He leaned forward in one decisive motion, looking at Keith with calm certainty. “—What it came down to in the end was that I wanted your attention. I wanted to impress you. That’s what I was doing every single day, despite trying to trick myself into thinking I wasn’t. Underneath all that stuff, I wanted you. I wanted you so bad, but I thought—you’d never want me back, so—I  _ tried _ —and then you asked me out, and for a time I still felt like an impostor, a cheat, because I couldn’t believe you’d actually fallen for the real me, and not the Lance I tried my best to be.” Lance bit his lip and smiled. “So, y’know. Yeah, I can barely remember a time when I didn’t have feelings for you. Romantic feelings.” 

 

Lance’s last words cracked the dam. In the ensuing silence, everything alive and moving inside Keith would no longer be contained. His heart rate pounding in his ears, breathing erratic, heat pushed against the backs of his eyes, unwilling to be held back. 

 

The tears furiously skated and skimmed down his face, his eyes burning hot. He disentangled his hands from Lance’s to try to eliminate them at the source, but new ones took their place instantly. 

 

“Shh, hey now, Keith,” Lance whispered, hands following Keith’s to his face and bracketing his cheeks to wipe his fast tears away with gentle thumbs. “Keith.”

 

Lance slid one of his hands up into Keith’s bangs gently, continuing to caress his cheek with the other. He combed them back, and slowly stroked Keith’s forehead and hair until his tears slowed their pace.

 

“You were just so cool and unapproachable and insanely handsome,” Lance continued in a conspiratorial whisper, still stroking Keith’s skin. “It was all very confusing,” Lance smiled, “but I just wanted—well, I remember this one time we were actually in this classroom for Flight Theory and Professor Montgomery got us to stand in front of the class, side by side ‘cause we were the only 95+ scorers on the Common Assessment. And I remember feeling like I wanted you to be impressed, y’know, to consider me your equal. To want me too.”

 

One lone loud sob ripped itself from Keith’s throat, his tears picking back up, stinging down his face. It was too much. 

 

Lance’s face went slack and he nearly toppled over the chair and the desk in front of him in his haste to get to closer to Keith. He knelt on the floor, shuffling between Keith’s legs, and hugged him tight around the middle within the space of a second, mumbling Keith’s name over and over like a mantra.

 

It was all too much. To understand—to fully internalize. To believe.

 

Keith’s body pitched forward into Lance, falling around Lance’s neck, curling himself around Lance’s head, and winding his Legs around Lance’s torso. He pressed Lance’s face into his chest and cried, fully enveloping his skull with his body. Everything that made Lance  _ Lance _ ; every memory and feeling, his entire history, had taken place here, within Keith’s grasp. Lance’s entire existence as a human being, as a skeleton and as muscle and nerve and bone, his personhood. A thing normally unremarked upon, yet miraculous and precious beyond belief, right here within him. 

 

Keith wanted to so badly protect him, to thank him, to give him  _ anything _ he could. He never wanted to give up this thing, this living thing between them that bound them together in flesh and blood and thought. So he fiercely clung on, nose buried in Lance’s soft and fresh smelling hair, fingers buried in his nape until his tears ran out.

 

When every last heave and every last shudder passed through him, Keith was barren like land after a forest fire. Razed to the ground, empty, and yet newborn and more powerful than ever before. That power, he knew in his bones, was the love in him for Lance. It was infinite; fed by tears and quiet truths, and all of the history between them. Lance—still nuzzling against his chest, arms secure and soft around Keith, stroking his sides gently and whispering his name. Lance—a boy who used to dream and dream, and never thought he was worthy. Lance—a boy who had seen Keith that first day, paid attention, and had never stopped. Lance—a man committed to others, to growth and love and  _ him _ . 

 

Keith thought it might be impossible to ever let Lance go.

 

“I want you, Lance. Always. You are the best of us,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

 

Lance only hugged him tighter, and let out an indecipherable noise into Keith’s shirt.

 

They sat like that for a few long moments more, and when they were finally ready, they disentangled slowly, in a dream. Keith gave Lance one last deliberate kiss on his hairline before Lance got to his feet, his expression dazed and raw. He was a man so meticulously crafted, with all seams welded and all cracks filled, and yet here he was: taken apart and turned inside out to show his most vulnerable constituent parts.

 

Keith took the lead. He grasped Lance’s hands and held them gently, running his thumbs across Lance’s knuckles. Lance’s eyes were big and exposed, and Keith gave him a smile he hoped conveyed safety and understanding and care.

 

 “So, where to next, Lancey Lance?” He asked, almost a whisper.

 

Lance’s answering smile was quiet and grateful. His hands squeezed back, and he hung his head for a moment, before letting out a long breath. Then, a slightly dampened version of his usual blinding enthusiasm took him over. “Oh just you wait, Kogane, I still need to show you the bathroom me and Hunk used to hang out in a lot. There’s some real art in there, and also, also, we had this trick in the student cafeteria—” and Lance was off, chatting away, his confidence building, pulling Keith along by the wrist. 

 

Keith couldn’t wait to see every piece of bathroom art and hear the funny stories Lance had to tell him. He couldn’t wait to piece together everything that this place had to tell him about Lance.

  
  


*

  
  


When they finally arrived at their last stop, the flight simulator, Keith had slowly started sorting through the haul of new information in his mind’s inbox. He was nowhere near putting it all away neatly—he was nowhere near processing it, or considering it part of the normal facts of his life—but every glance, every word, every time their eyes met, he calmed, settling into accepting this as his new reality.

 

Lance hit the large button that caused the door to the flight classroom to slide open, and came to a halt in front of the ramp that led into the cockpit.

 

“Damn, I haven’t seen this baby in  _ so long _ ,” Lance breathed excitedly. “Where the hell is the…” He trailed off, having moved along the perimeter of the machine to find the hidden panel that Iverson always slid open to turn the whole machine on.

 

Keith watched Lance open the panel and flip the red lever with a triumphant grin. Something about the image—a finger lifting and pushing the metal, and the sound of the snap as the switch flipped, unexpectedly plucked a string inside Keith. A thrill of anticipation fizzed in his stomach and bubbled up to his head as he watched the simulator hatch lower itself. 

 

Right, he’d loved this too. The hazy mess of his other memories of the Garrison—a mixture of complicated emotions and frustrations—lay on top of that fact like a heavy fog. But being here, waiting outside its sleek exterior, pierced through the fog like a beacon; that familiar tingling joy, that rush of pride, that light happiness coursing through him again.

 

Back then, Keith was sure he was going to fuck his life up, one way or another. Abandoned and useless and so difficult and different. But then Shiro had given him this;  _ flight _ . Something he understood without thinking; something he was  _ good at _ . 

 

Keith was still constantly fucking up long after Shiro had scouted him that day, but the simulator had been the rock he needed to help him pull himself out of the raging river of the rest of his life. Something solid and secure within a world of chaos and confusion.

 

The moment he’d first sat down in the pilot’s chair and grasped the controls, he felt power gathering at his fingertips; the calm knowledge that he could make anything he wanted a reality with a flick of his wrist, with his instinctive drive. He’d finally grasped the controls to his life, because he knew that he could  _ do this _ . It was singing in his blood, a chorus:  _ you were born for this, don’t think just do _ . It was one of the first joys of his life.

 

He knew Lance felt that joy, and that sort of affinity too. It was in his voice whenever he talked about flying, and it was evident any time Keith watched him in Blue. This place, right here in front of them, was probably where Lance had first discovered it, just like him. 

 

Keith took a few steps towards Lance and laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing and feeling the give of solid muscles and bone in his grip. He wanted to say  _ I’m with you, I’m right here beside you _ . Lance turned his head languidly and gave him an excited, sly grin, and Keith couldn’t help but return it, seeing the bubbly impatience in his gut reflected in Lance’s bright eyes. This thing between them, it had to be magic. It made him feel tingly and ecstatic. It made him feel so proud, and so special, like he was the only person to ever have been properly alive, a person chosen by the grace of some deity. Chosen and worthy to be turned inside out by Lance. And he wanted it. Wanted Lance to see it all.

 

Keith followed Lance inside once the ramp lowered itself, and Lance eagerly hopped into the pilot’s seat. Keith looked around thinking about where he could sit when he caught sight of Lance’s cheeky smile. He was gesturing at his lap.

 

Keith snorted. “Are you serious?” 

 

Lance’s grin only widened, his dancing eyes happy. “Dead.”

 

Keith sat down in Lance’s lap, legs splayed out wide to distribute his weight so it wouldn’t hurt Lance. “Alright, but it’ll probably affect your reaction speed—” 

 

Lance cut him off with a squeeze around his stomach and a kiss to the nape of his neck. “I’m willing to take that chance,” Lance whispered into Keith’s ear. 

 

Keith felt the words burn his face, but instead of letting the flash fever run down his spine and spread across his limbs, he focused on adjusting his thighs so they folded open wider, and he could lean back and give Lance better range of motion. Lance’s hands immediately roamed across his stomach, hips, and legs, and anywhere else he could reach.

 

 “Alright Lance, let me see you do it then.” Keith managed to sound light and playful.

 

Lance’s face lit up at his words, giddy at the opportunity to impress him. His hands snapped from where they lingered at Keith’s inner thighs, back up to the controls in front of him. “Alright, no distractions, Cadet,” he scolded Keith with a playful smirk.

 

“I wasn’t even doing anything,” Keith said, his voice coming out deep and sullen. Lance snorted at the statement as if the concept was ridiculous.

 

“Watch and learn,” Lance said, his hotshot statement directly contradicting the awkward position his arms were in, snaking around Keith to get to the controls.

 

Keith watched Lance quickly tap into instructor mode—something he was only vaguely aware existed—and chose a custom solo sim scenario. A flash of heat rolled over Keith, watching Lance’s practiced fingers flicking through options—Lance must have been given access outside of class and often practiced without an instructor. His serious determination and casual competence bowled Keith over, appealing to him on some primal level. Keith might not know how to access instructor mode, but he recognized the drive and the passion underneath it all and he liked it.

 

Lance selected a slightly offbeat extraction sim that starting deep in a low-vis gorge, but Keith’s eyes remained on Lance’s hands. Through their years of space travel, Keith was as familiar with Lance’s style as he was with his own. Lance was efficient and conservative unless he felt confident that the stakes were low enough to play. Keith watched Lance’s long fingers grip and release, the waves of tension flow into languid strokes and turns, the effortless flourishes and impressive maneuvers— _ he was showing off _ .

 

Keith turned his head to watch Lance’s face. He could see the progress of the mission reflected in his expressions. The big grin never left his face, but he sometimes bit his lip in concentration when he was approaching a particularly challenging obstacle, and he stole happy glances at Keith after he’d landed something outrageously extra.

 

The chime of the Final Objective Achievement sounded, and Lance gave a whoop, letting go of the controls with cocky panache. Keith shifted around in Lance’s lap to face him, and when their eyes met, there was a confident smirk on his face. Keith realized Lance was waiting for his reaction.

 

“Wow,” Keith breathed, face inching closer to Lance’s deliberately. “That was impressive.” Despite the breathy pitch of his voice, his tone was genuine. 

 

“Oh, uh.” Lance had probably expected something slightly more teasing. “Thank you.” Lance went rosy, looking taken aback.

 

Keith licked his lips. Their faces were only separated by a breath.

 

“So now that I told you how impressed I am, will you wanna fuck me right here in this chair?” Keith asked, light and playful. 

 

Now it was only half a breath.

 

Lance laughed, quick and short. “Nope.”

 

Keith reared back on a sharp intake of breath, the misjudgment burning his cheeks.

 

“Hah, total wrong end of the stick there, Keith.” Lance sounded gentle and amused, tucking a strand of Keith’s hair behind his ear. “ _ Obviously _ , after you tell me how impressed you are, how irresistible, cool, handsome, et cetera, you think I am,  _ you _ are supposed to fuck  _ me _ , you feel?”

 

Keith’s thoughts ground to a halt, his mouth gaping slightly. Lance’s gaze never left his, smile patient, waiting for him to think it through.

 

Keith remembered Lance’s words with a start.  _ Tell me I’m handsome and fuck me against the simulator _ . He hadn’t registered it then, didn’t get how it all fit in. But now...

 

Lance wanted Keith to see him. Of course.  _ Of course _ .

 

He wanted to be wanted, desired.  _ His _ .

 

“You want…” Keith started. “ _ Oh _ .”

 

Before either of them could say anything else, Pidge’s booming voice cut in from an unknown source. “Hey gruesome twosome, dumbass duo—” Lance squawked in protest reflexively. “—It’s dinner time, so please emerge from wherever you are, doing god knows what, and report to the cafeteria, stat, over!”

 

Miraculously, the tension created by the previous exchange survived the intrusion intact. Their eyes remained locked for a long moment before Keith acted. His eyes never straying, Keith turned his body around and slotted one knee in between Lance’s splayed thighs, moving it up so it was nudging snug against Lance’s crotch. He leaned in so he was barely hovering above Lance’s lips. “The lube’s already packed up, but I won’t let it stop me,” Keith whispered.

 

Lance’s eyes dilated instantly, and he let out a small breathy groan. “ _ Fuck _ .”

 

“Stat means now, guys!” This time it was Shiro’s voice over the speaker. 

  
  


*

  
  


Dinner had just started when they made it back to the officers’ mess hall. The whole team was tucking into square cafeteria-style pizza when Lance and Keith approached the table.

 

“Where were you guys? We couldn’t find you anywhere when we were done,” Pidge asked around a bite of pizza. 

 

“I took Keithy on a little excursion back to school,” Lance said, slinging his arm around Keith’s shoulders, his hand dangling beside Keith’s face. “You could say I… schooled him.” Lance gave Keith, then Pidge, an extremely self-satisfied grin.

 

Pidge snorted. “You mean you gave him a tour of the ‘I’m obsessed with Keith’ museum?”

 

“ _ Well excuse me _ for having had feelings for Keith, y’know, my actual boyfriend,” Lance shot back, leaning down towards Pidge, bringing Keith with him awkwardly. “Who’s laughing now, huh?” Lance’s expression was extremely smug.

 

Before Pidge could answer the question, Lance’s face broke into something big and joyous and unstoppable.

 

“Oh jeez,” said Pidge under her breath, but there was a smile threatening at her lips too.

 

Lance turned his head towards Keith and grinned like a lovesick lottery winner, open and unabashed and proud.

 

Keith melted under the intensity of Lance’s feelings like ice-cream in the midday sun; hot and sticky and sweet. The history of it, the magnitude, the depths—

 

“Yeah,” Keith croaked. “He showed me all the weird shit you guys used to get up to.” Keith smiled, trying to echo everything he saw on Lance’s face. “It sounded like a lot of fun.” Keith’s voice was thick with the truth of it. 

 

Keith then wrapped an arm around Lance’s waist, pulling him closer and lightly stroking his skin through his uniform. He gave Lance his full attention, letting his smile shift lopsided, his eyes focusing on just Lance. “I like the ‘I’m obsessed with Keith’ museum.” He let his gaze linger for a searing second, hammering the words into Lance as best he could.

 

Lance’s confident grin collapsed, eyes wide, mouth open a fraction, breathing in—and when he caught himself, he gave Keith a hooded, lush look that tattooed itself onto his heart. Keith didn’t know if it was the look or the words or the way he’d put his hand on Lance’s waist, the gentle pressure, but Lance’s lax mouth and deep, private eyes jumped down Keith’s throat and lodged themselves heavy in his stomach—and he understood instinctively. That this was all it took. This was his effect; his power over Lance, and it took his breath away. The man wanted him and wanted to be wanted by him, and Keith needed to give him whatever he wanted.

 

“You show him the cafeteria thing?” Hunk piped up, directing a big warm smile at Keith.

 

“Shh, not in front of  _ Iverson _ ,” Pidge hissed. She gestured at where Iverson was standing, chatting to Shiro and Allura right next to them.

 

“Oh, good point,” Hunk continued in a loud whisper. “What about all that stuff Lance wrote on our bathroom—”

 

Lance and Pidge made a variety of simultaneous noises that could generally be interpreted as shushing. “ _ Worse _ , Hunk,” Pidge added.

 

Before the whole thing could go any further, and they somehow managed to incriminate themselves for something more egregious than petty vandalism, Keith increased the pressure of his hand on Lance’s waist, summoning his attention like it was a boomerang returning to his hand. Keith gave him a quick head jerk in the direction of the cafeteria line, circling his fingers lightly against thick material over skin.

 

Lance gave a short upward movement of the head indicating casual assent, but his pupils were dilated, eyes dark blue and dangerous. Keith slid his hand towards the small of Lance’s back with intention and with firm, easy pressure he guided him over towards the now dwindling line for food. They struck a commanding path from one side of the cafeteria to the other, side by side, Keith half a step behind Lance. He couldn’t see Lance’s face fully, but the tension in the muscles underneath Keith’s hands and the sight of the solid cross of his spine and strong shoulders was enough to be legible to Keith. It told him all he needed to know about the effect of his physical attention. It really was working.

 

When they got to the beginning of the line, Keith’s hands bookended Lance’s hips, feeling his hip bones, dull under the thick uniform jacket, and encouraged him forward. He was about to be forced to take his hands off Lance’s body to choose his food, and he wanted to be behind Lance so he could watch him move, and so he could make Lance aware of him.

 

They took their trays, Keith reluctantly peeling his fingers off Lance, and went down the line slowly; ladles scraping against metal, plates clattering, trays sliding, the white noise of chatter and the scrape of chairs became the orchestral accompaniment to the dehydration of Keith’s mouth. The fluid glide-linger-lean-stop of Lance’s movements, the large spread of his hands on the counter, the angle of his shoulder blades as he contemplated, the way he ducked down to joke with the staff, confident, grin dimpled—it all washed through Keith like a fever, robbing him of everything but the name and the need. 

 

Keith leaned forward, mouth not quite touching Lance’s ear. “Lance.” 

 

“Yeah?” Lance’s head tilted, eyebrows at odds, looking up at Keith from where he was inspecting some salad options.

 

Keith still had nothing but the name and the need. Blank mind scrambling for purchase, he spotted the dessert counter up ahead and read out the words on one of the labels. “Chocolate pudding.”

  
  


“Yeah!” Lance repeated with a happy grin. They’d only just been talking about it, Lance telling him about his and Hunk’s escapades trying to locate where the pudding powder was stored, and organizing a failed heist to steal some through a large vent in the refrigerator room.

 

“I wanna lick it off you,” Keith said, the words coming from somewhere completely mysterious to him. He didn’t think they had even crossed his mind before they were out of his mouth.

 

Lance’s flimsy act of normalcy dropped and he turned to Keith sharply. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “You’re going to kill me, dude.” His eyebrows in his hairline, he did a quick, very conspicuous stretch, letting his eyes roam around the cafeteria casually, or at least what Lance probably thought was casual. “Where—I mean what do you wanna lick it off?”

 

The natural current of the line shuffled them along clumsily. Lance’s eyes remained stuck on him as Keith silently leaned across him and placed two cups of pudding on their respective trays. He transferred his tray from its perch along the counter into one hand, despite the weight of it stinging in his wrists, and placed his other hand back on Lance’s body. “Everywhere,” Keith said. “Your chest, your thighs, your—” 

 

“Fuck—okay, we can uh—bookmark that, table it, and uh let’s get back to the—hah—table before I reach terminal horny and combust,” Lance said, his voice low and gravelly. Keith couldn’t believe all that had worked. 

 

Keith watched him put on his easy-breezy smile as they returned to their table. Iverson was gone.

 

“What did Iverson want?” Lance asked, sitting down with his food. Keith was forced to sit opposite him, but his eyes stayed trained.

 

“You’re being court-martialed,” Pidge stated.

 

“Oh, he just wanted to make sure everything was ready for our departure,” Allura cut in before Lance could retort. “The new terran-Altean communications technology we developed needs to be handled with the utmost care, as you know.” She gave them all a significant look. “Its transport needs to be precisely timed.”

 

“Which means we depart in two hours, sharp, guys, and  _ dressed _ …  _ Lance, _ ” Shiro chimed in. Lance’s eyes snapped to meet Keith’s. They were bottomless, almost black.

 

“You forget something one time, and it turns into a whole  _ thing _ .” Lance sighed and made a  _ what are you gonna do _ kind of expression, starting to munch on his pizza, seemingly unaffected by the ribbing.

 

He might have been unaffected by the reminder of the time he turned up to a coalition meeting in his dressing-gown, but it was all in Lance’s eyes and his movements. They seemed too carefully calibrated to convince Keith of anything. There was too much tension in Lance’s jaw and the spread of his legs on the bench was slightly too wide, the nonchalance turned up a bit too high. Keith could see the effect he’d had like a live wire. The softest implication of a possessive touch, of attention and observation from Keith, were all it took. 

 

The conversation moved on but Keith could barely concentrate. All he could focus on was how much louder and funnier and more casually commanding and charismatic Lance became the more of Keith’s attention he got. So Keith couldn’t help but brush up against him more often, watch him more intently, respond to his jokes more specifically. It was as if Keith’s eyes were a direct source of energy and the more Lance got, the bigger he grew in every conceivable way.

 

Shiro, Allura, Hunk and Pidge were long finished by the time Lance and Keith started on their pudding cups, but Hunk and Pidge had decided to hang around anyway. 

 

“Hey, uh, Lance, I gotta go to the bathroom,” Keith said, remembering the lube and condoms he’d packed away, passing Lance the rest of his pudding to finish. He gave Lance a long look.

 

“Oh yeah, speaking of, Hunk and I finished packing up earlier, obviously, so do you guys wanna come play KBP in Hunk’s room after Keith’s back from the bathroom?” Pidge asked with a smile.

 

Keith felt a moment of activation, realizing the reigns of the situation were in his hands. “No, sorry—uh—we have plans,” Keith said in the most normal voice he could and got up with his tray. 

 

“Wait, what are you guys—” Keith heard Hunk start to ask Lance. He didn’t wait to hear the end of the question, nor Lance’s answer as he walked out of the cafeteria, and then ran to the loading bay.

  
  


*

  
  


Keith wrenched open the crate that contained his toiletries, letting the heavy top clatter to the floor. His breathing, his movements, his thoughts were all in furious crescendo, giving him a kind of frantic tunnel vision he only recognized from fighting and flying. He could barely make himself throw all of his stuff back into the crate and re-screw the individual screws on each of the four corners of the lid back on properly once he finally located the purple bottle of earth lube. He’d bought it at a gas station at some point in the last few weeks, but he couldn’t remember when—he could barely  _ think _ .

 

What exactly had he said to Lance? That he was gonna go to the bathroom... but they hadn’t discussed where they were going to meet up.  _ Fuck _ . When he’d felt the end of their meal approaching, the drumbeat in his veins had picked up, telling him to  _ go, go, go _ , leaving no room for subtle points of organization. He hoped Lance had read his mind and knew he wasn’t actually going to the bathroom, and that he wanted them to meet back up in Lance’s room.

 

He dashed back to the barracks—nearly plowing into a few petty officers in the process, but unable to concentrate on much except the need to get to where he wanted to go—until everything ground to a halt in front of Lance’s bedroom door. 

 

Here Lance was, beyond this door, waiting. Hopefully. Keith hadn’t devised a plan for how this was going to go—his brain was barely capable of a train of thought, let alone a plan. All he knew was that he was going to show Lance how much he wanted him, and how the feeling of it— _ the thinking of those words in his head _ —consumed him. He carved the phrase inside his chest and trusted that it would be his guiding light when coherent thought failed him.

 

Keith knocked once, sharply, opened the door, and there he was. Lance was standing right there, near the door, like he’d been waiting. The room was dark, the bedside lamps illuminating Lance’s straight figure in gentle red-scale light. The harsh halogen hallway lights Keith was letting in seemed to be intruding on the beautiful still life in front of him.

 

They both said nothing for a long time. Keith could feel the moment of culmination laid out between them, their lines of fate coming to a point of convergence. All of their glances and every word, the tighter bond they’d forged today, all playing out and pulling them here, towards the origin.

 

Lance’s arms were at his sides, stationary but not dangling, hands relaxed, his weight distributed evenly, posture symmetrical. His thighs were muscled and long, accentuated by the uniform leggings, waist thin and shoulders broad. His eyes were silent, willing, waiting, but not challenging. He was offering himself up, saying: this is what I am, want me, have me, however you want.

 

Keith stepped towards Lance, and Lance took a mirroring step backward, eyes never leaving Keith’s, expression never changing. Lance’s eyes didn’t have a hint of his customary humor in them, staring at Keith like he’d been willingly captured. Keith took another step, and Lance echoed.

 

Keith’s stomach swooped hard seeing Lance so serious, so devoid of any impulse to alleviate the tension. Normally this would be his cue to crack a joke, keep this atmosphere from boiling for too long, from getting too real. 

 

He didn’t.

 

Step forward—step back—they continued, picking up the tempo until Lance’s calves hit the edge of the bed. The pattern ended with a bump, and everything froze.

 

Keith didn’t immediately reach out to touch Lance. He wanted to revel in the sobriety of the moment. There was no joking or regulating—just being. He felt glowing pride at having taken that expectation away from Lance. At having relieved him of the burden of constantly gauging moods and managing emotions and situations, and at having him standing here willing to be so vulnerable. Letting everything wash over him, and letting himself be.

 

Lance was allowing himself to be seen at his softest, his most unembellished. Keith realized with a start that Lance was doing a trust fall and that he held the power to let him plummet, as well as the power to catch him, feather-light in his arms. He needed to show Lance how safe it was to be this unguarded with him; that he’d always catch Lance when he allowed himself to let go.

 

Lance was hanging, still waiting for the fateful drop or the saving catch, until Keith finally reached forward and placed a hand on Lance’s chest gently. Right over his heart, Keith moved his fingers and palm in light circles, feeling the folds of fabric move over solid muscle and soft skin. Keith imagined his feelings surging through the material, through flesh, and wrapping around the warm heart beneath. He imagined them flowing from his fingers like ropes, like a net of gold he could wrap Lance’s magic golden heart in.

 

“I love you,” Keith said, finally. The net glowed, locked itself into Lance’s chest when Lance smiled.

 

He then gave Lance a small shove, sending him into a graceful collapse onto the bed below. Keith placed one knee between Lance’s legs—open like a diamond—and moved carefully, watching Lance’s trembling lips and the crease between his brows. The intensity in his face ramped up as Keith shifted his weight, thigh angling forward, his second leg coming to rest on the bed too, hips moving closer, chest almost touching Lance too. He moved slowly, moved deliberately—closer, but not close enough, a great almost. The deep pounding underneath every motion sent ripples across Lance’s eyelids, his eyebrows quivering with each additional piece of sequential proximity, every element beating into Lance like the most primal of drums. Keith’s pace wasn’t normally this meticulous and measured, but something in him was telling him this was how it had to be. That whatever he did to Lance, he had to do it carefully. To make sure Lance knew it was deliberate.

 

Keith’s hand came back to Lance’s chest, firmly moving towards his rounded shoulders, keeping the pressure steady, savoring the feeling of the contact. Lance’s breathing slid from silent to vocalized, and when Keith moved his knee up to fit against Lance’s crotch, it became a quiet  _ hah _ , and then a  _ hah-augh _ when Keith deliberately placed his other hand on Lance’s waist and gripped tight. Just like how silences made the smallest noises grow to become the size of orchestras, in the absence of frenzy, the smallest flame of a touch grew and seemed to consume Lance like a forest fire. 

 

Keith marveled, briefly watching his hands against the folds of the fabric of Lance’s clothes. He couldn’t believe it was proving to be this easy. That Lance was this light a touch. But the evidence was right in front of him. He’d stripped the halls of Lance’s mind of its wallpaper and was staring at the gorgeous, ancient murals below. Keith had been right about everything. And Lance had been wanting for this for God knows how long. The Lance that had seemed so pissed that day rescuing Shiro had wanted this, and the Lance that had snubbed him after his fight with Sendak had wanted this, and the Lance face-planting into someone in the locker area had wanted this. 

 

Keith felt a thrill of power surge up in him, crackling and whipping up his spine. He could barely believe it, even now, but he had the power in his hands to make Lance’s deepest desires a reality and to finally give him what he yearned for. 

 

Lance was still leaning on his elbows, and from his current position, Keith could see Lance’s wound up face. With his hand on Lance’s shoulder, he pushed again gently, getting him flat on his back. Lance let himself go down again without a sound—the only accompaniment being the lazy unfolding of his legs to allow Keith more access in the space between, and the lovely way his hair was swept up, disheveled around his handsome face. Keith went down too, on his hands and knees caging Lance in, retracting every piece of touch he’d doled out just a moment earlier, leaving no point of contact remaining.

 

Lance's eyes were heavy, adorned by the weight of eyelashes, drawn brows and dilated pupils. Keith looked right into that face, wanting to see the reaction when he initiated contact again; when he returned his thigh and pressed down.

 

Lance’s eyes closed softly, mouth parting around a low luxurious  _ uhn _ that was so exquisite it licked white-hot into Keith’s stomach.

 

“You got my attention.” Keith’s mouth had wandered down towards Lance’s but stayed far enough away to watch him react. Lance took a big breath, eyes flying back open like he couldn’t quite believe what Keith was saying, and that this was really happening. After a hanging second of silence, he finally managed a whispered, “ _ ho-ly shit _ .”

 

“I noticed you showing off for me, Lance,” Keith said, staring down at him. “All—day—long.” He moved fraction closer with each word.

 

Lance licked his lips, breathing audibly. “Did you like it?”

 

“Yes.” Keith moved so close their lips were almost touching, and he had to bend his elbows to keep himself from collapsing onto Lance.

 

“I’m always just trying to impress you, you know,” Lance said quietly, almost mouthing the words, the sounds rolling through his chest, catching on the sandpaper of his deepest, sexiest register. Lance did impress him, in ways he probably couldn't imagine. Every day, in quiet ways that required the sort of inner strength, understanding, and empathy that few people possessed. 

 

“You do,” Keith said. “Even when you’re not trying to.”

 

On shaking elbows, corded biceps and delts straining at the awkward wide-angle, Lance hoisted himself up to finally close the gap between their bodies. Legs slotting together hips, chest to chest, and finally,  _ finally _ , slick, wet, open mouth to mouth. Lance surged up like a wave against Keith’s body, with his lips and tongue its most greedy crest, rushing into Keith’s mouth like the force of the tides coasting in to steal him off the shore. Keith couldn’t help but groan and open wide, letting everything—Lance’s hunger for him, the texture of his shameless tongue against his, the smell of his exhales and his skin—skim down through his gut, warm and slow, to bloom as dark, heavy arousal. 

 

Lance lowered himself an inch, breaking away with a decadent smacking wet mouth sound. “Keith, will you let me suck you off?” He asked plainly. He wasn’t begging or frantic or joking. It was all just heavy-lidded desire.

 

“Yeah, do it.” Keith’s voice came out without forethought. “I want to see you.” 

 

He tipped himself over to the side so Lance could slide down to the floor, hands firmly caressing any part of Keith they could, on the way down. Lance could never keep his hands to himself, and the thought pulsed Keith’s heart as well as his hips. 

 

But then, instead of charging ahead, opening Keith’s pants, touching every plane of his body above and below his clothes, diving headfirst, mouth open, nose first into Keith’s body like he usually would, Lance didn’t. Kneeling in silence, hands stretched out on Keith’s thighs, he asked, “Can I?” His tone was unfamiliar. Lance had asked him for permission plenty of times but never had he sounded so bare. It didn’t feel like he was asking Keith in his current iteration, his mortal boyfriend. His reverent, humble tone made it seem like he was asking permission from a deity. Like he was facing the version of Keith that he had conjured all those years ago, as well as the one he knew now and hoped to be with tomorrow, all in one being.

 

“Yes,” Keith said, quickly opening his uniform leggings, and yanking his boxer briefs down around his hard dick, giving it a few quick strokes that jolted through him like lightning bolts. Normally this would be the point at which Lance took over oral proceedings and eagerly swallowed him down, but again, he didn’t. He sat between Keith’s legs, his mouth still slightly parted, eyes looking up at Keith as if the thought of just going for it had never even occurred to him, waiting for his cue. 

 

Lance looked about as aroused as Keith had ever seen him, eyes flashing black, hair mussed—somehow still managing to look artful and dashing—erection obvious under his leggings, long curved quads spread in a V as he kneeled. Even in the low night light of the bare garrison room, Lance looked like a lush fantasy. 

 

Keith let out a pressured breath in a whoosh, and reached out to tangle his fingers in Lance’s hair, and tenderly nudge his face closer to his cock, which he was still holding loosely in the other hand. “Yeah,” he barely whispered as he angled it towards the waiting part of Lance’s mouth that opened easily as soon as the head drew close enough to slide over his spit slick lips. Keith watched Lance’s eyes fall closed, mouth opening wider to let more of his dick slide inside, his face steeped in pliant arousal and the desire to please Keith. It was an addicting sight that somehow made him even harder than he already was.

 

When there was no more room in his mouth, Lance instinctively brought his hand up to make up for the rest. The motion seemed to shift him back onto familiar ground—his enthusiastic motions like second nature—one hand gripping Keith’s thigh, and one hand quickly becoming slippery with saliva, jerking him off in tandem with his wet, laving mouth. 

 

Lance’s motions were automatic—programmed into him by the innumerable blowjobs he’d given Keith up to now—every movement perfectly calibrated to Keith’s body. Lance’s hands twisted Keith’s foreskin just right, creating a tight sleeve that his mouth capped with a sublime mixture of pressures, managing to alternate between tight suction and sloppily fucking Keith against the bottom of his tongue, the insides of his cheeks and the back of his mouth. Lance knew exactly when to mix things around and when to relax; when to stay consistent and when to speed up, and this time, Keith could tell, there was something extra too. Between the notes of the enthusiastic hums and snapping wet sounds that filled the otherwise silent room, Keith could feel an additional eagerness to please, a sense that Lance wanted to show Keith how well he could do.

 

“Hhm, so good, Lance, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Keith murmured, watching Lance for his reaction, to see whether it worked.

 

Lance’s wide eyes flicked up and he let out a helpless little  _ mrrh _ , mouth going lax for a split second. Keith groaned. Right again.

 

Lance then reached up for one of Keith’s hands that had fallen by the wayside, and laid it on the back of his head, pressing it down lightly, requesting a physical show of conscious desire and approval. 

 

Keith slid his fingers into the wavy hair at the back of Lance’s head, and slowly pulled Lance back in, making no effort to stifle his grunt of pleasure. Lance hungrily resumed what he was doing, and Keith matched his pace with a level of pressure that was encouraging rather than dominating. He rubbed Lance’s scalp lovingly, moving along with Lance’s pace, and giving him the tiniest cues to speed up by guiding him rather than pushing him. Every light steering touch and every one of Keith’s vocalizations wrung a sound out of Lance and spurred him on to do even better, to try even harder.

 

Lance was an expert at reading Keith’s moans, able to navigate routes to Keith’s orgasm like a veteran cartographer, and so the moment Keith himself felt the first blush of an orgasm on the horizon, Lance knew too. He accelerated his motions, insinuating one hand into Keith’s underwear and pressing against the skin behind his balls as best he could, catapulting Keith towards that horizon.

 

Lance’s eyes were trained on him, eyebrows drawn, looking like he was pleading. Like he was as desperate for Keith to come as Keith himself was. Watching him, Keith felt an impulse to do something he’d never done before. He’d been proven right in all of his previous theories, and he was fairly certain that this next hypothesis would please Lance too.

 

Estimating about how close he was to coming—not wanting to be too far gone for this in case he had to stop—he gently grabbed Lance’s hair and eased him off his dick. He didn’t let him drift away though, keeping him right next to it. 

 

Keith kept his hand buried in Lance’s hair and replaced Lance’s mouth and hand with his own. He slowed his pace—wanting to calm himself down just in case—and languidly stroked himself right next to Lance’s cheek, knuckles brushing against his soft skin on a few strokes. Lance’s mouth was agape, eyes rolled to the side and glued to what Keith was doing. Lance looked completely undone already, but Keith needed to  _ know _ .

 

Keith gently pulled Lance’s face further away so he had more space, and slowly jerked himself off right in front of Lance’s face, letting the head of his dick just about slide against Lance’s lips and chin. Lance’s already open mouth widened instinctively, wanting to lick, his breathing going ragged and loud, fanning all over Keith’s dick, his eyes more than half-lidded. It was one of the hottest sights Keith had ever seen.

 

The angle, the position, they all implied Keith’s intentions, and Lance’s reactions certainly seemed to bear out Keith’s earlier assumptions, but he had to know for sure.

 

Keith moved his hand from the back of Lance’s head to his chin, calling for his full attention. He looked into Lance’s now open eyes seriously, hoping he hadn’t grossly misjudged the situation. “I’m gonna come on your face, is that okay?—Is that what you want?” 

 

“ _ Yea—h _ .” Lance’s response was part exhale, part word, part groan, and Keith could see his unoccupied hand adjusting his cock through his leggings. Lance looked so turned on, it was more than blatant; his desire for it written all over his face. It was enough to make Keith want to speed up and come right then and there. __

 

_ Just hold on _ , he told himself.

 

Keith leaned down and tipped Lance’s face up so he could press an adoring, slow, chaste kiss to Lance’s messy lips that conveyed many different things, chief among them his willingness to do whatever Lance wanted. When he pulled back, he kept his index finger and thumb curled under Lance’s strong jaw so he could pull him into position for what came next.

 

He gripped his dick like he did when he wanted to come  _ now _ , and jerked himself slightly further away, but still close enough that there was barely half an inch of space between Lance’s quivering, gaping mouth and the head of his dick. Lance looked wrecked, eyes nearly closed, chest heaving, breath coming out ragged, his hand wrapped around the trapped shape of his dick in his tight pants. He embodied the very idea of desperate frenzied pleasure in Keith’s mind. Lance was ravished, handsome perfection, and he was gonna come all over him like he was soiling a priceless work of art.

 

It was that thought and that sight that did it after a few seconds. He came right onto Lance’s lips, chin, and into his half-open mouth with a low jagged groan, his orgasm ripping through his entire body, searing him.

 

Lance’s eyes looked wild, his face a picture of stunned beauty, fading into fuzz, as Keith’s brain threatened to shut down in the buzzing, heavy glow. He fought the impulse to flop down on his back and sleep, focusing in on Lance’s erection and his tongue licking his lips clean of come.

 

After a long moment of dazed silence, Lance wiped his face with his uniform sleeve, breathing heavy. “ _ Wow _ .”

 

Keith put himself away, and did his pants up, his limbs still tingling, and his eyes trained on Lance’s hand holding his dick through his pants. “Get undressed, I wanna see you.” 

 

“Okay,” Lance said, almost surprised. Starting with his uniform jacket, he unbuttoned, unfurled, pulled off every item on his body, taking his time so Keith could see it move against his skin and reveal his limbs piece by piece. Lance loved being watched like this. Being admired. And Keith liked watching him; his lean muscled body like a modern-day David, stunning and sleek, his legs muscled and long. His dick was considerably larger than David’s was though, Keith joked to himself.

 

Lance stood there, finally naked and fully exposed, neither shameless nor self-conscious. “Come here,” Keith said, patting the bed and inviting Lance to come lie down next to him. Lance obeyed silently with long strides, sitting down with boyish grace. How was it that everything Lance did had some attractive flourish to it?

 

Keith’s hands immediately came up to Lance’s defined chest, feeling his pecs and their smooth, lean transition into his delts, and then, instead of pushing him down, he asked: “Lie down for me?”

 

Lance went just as easily as he did when he wasn’t asked, folding his long legs up onto the bed, lying lengthwise up on top of the covers, while Keith laid down on his side next to him, one hand still splayed on top of his chest, feeling the muscles expand and contract with every inhale.

 

Keith’s focus widened, taking in Lance’s big blue eyes, his hard dick jutting up, one of his arms resting on his stomach, long fingers poised, the other arm thrown up above his head showcasing every single muscle in the chain from his elbow down to his abs. 

 

Instead of wasting more time admiring Lance’s physique, Keith carefully took Lance’s hand from his stomach, and wrapped it around his dick, leaving it there, and whispered, “I wanna see you get yourself off.”

 

Lance let his eyes fall shut, tugging the foreskin over the head of his dick, as he always did before he started in on himself properly. “Lance, look at me,” Keith interrupted, insisting on eye contact. “I wanna know—” he cleared his throat. “Tell me what you used to think about.” 

 

Keith could see the difficulty of the task in the way Lance’s nostrils flared around a sharp inhale, and the way his lips peeled open, probably to make some form of deflecting joke. But then he closed it with a quiet smack and kept his eyes open.

 

Keith gave him what he hoped was an encouraging nod, and Lance swallowed. “Okay,” Lance said. 

 

Keith knew it was excruciatingly hard for him to be this exposed. He was being denied his eyelids—the most basic defense—and he was being asked to present Keith with some of the most personal information there was. Of course, Lance had always had a big and filthy mouth, never shy about parting with all manner of information, sexual or otherwise. But this was different, because this wasn’t on his terms. He wasn’t the one deciding what and how to divulge, he was being asked and told.

 

But he persisted. Lance’s blue eyes looked shy for one second before he pushed through. He brought one hand up from his stomach, sticking three fingers in his mouth and decadently lubing them up with spit. “I used to— _ ah— _ ” he started, touching himself loosely. Lance liked a slow buildup. “I used to think about your eyes— ” He adjusted his grip and position slightly, and set a languid pace. “—watching me—like—that first day—” Lance’s eyes were still wide open, burning into Keith’s beside him, so passionate and raw, and Keith couldn’t help but stare right back. 

 

“You were just so—so  _ you _ —so intense, more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen—” Lance carried on. “I got hard just thinking about you looking at me.” Keith felt heat threaten to shoot up his neck and take over his face at Lance’s honest words, knowing it would probably get worse from here on. He’d asked for this, told Lance he couldn’t shy away, but he was overwhelmed by the images and ideas Lance described, and the urge to avert his gaze and shout into a pillow was powerful. But he wouldn’t do it. Instead, Keith snapped into action, one of his heretofore idle hands slipping under Lance’s head to pull him closer, and the other stroking inwards on Lance’s thigh to get the necessary purchase to hoist it closer and trap it between his thighs.

 

Lance’s breath hitched and he made a pleased sound at being touched and grabbed, and being closer to Keith. His eyes roamed around Keith’s face, looking up at him from a new angle, lingering on his lips, then slipping back up to his eyes, darkening further. “What I thought about was you grabbing me and sticking your hand down my pants, and jerking me off rough and quick.” Lance’s hand was still working slowly and leisurely, only speeding up minutely. “I thought about how you’d feel—what it would taste like to have your spit and tongue and dick in my mouth—” 

 

“Yeah,” Keith moaned, as Lance’s words slithered down through him like tantalizing snakes, pooling in his gut. He was in a prison of his own making, having to watch Lance’s mouth form around words that felt both unfathomable and endlessly arousing—trapped between needing to hear more and needing Lance to stop because it was too much. He tried to focus instead on the feeling of the soft skin of Lance’s thigh underneath his hand, caressing it, letting his hand drift up and down, brushing up against the damp furnace behind Lance’s balls where his cheeks met.

 

“And then, I imagined how you’d never want anyone but me,” Lance continued, almost a whisper, words breaking at the seams. 

 

“ _ Lance _ ,” Keith said, his voice rough, the word coming out in a soft growl. The way Lance was turning himself inside out for him hit him in the heart and the gut simultaneously. Keith tightened his arm around Lance’s shoulder, supporting his neck and trying to hold him as close as he could. Then, the hand attached to it slid into Lance’s hair, and he ground his dick up tight against Lance’s trapped thigh. “You can close your eyes,” Keith said, thinking Lance had probably had enough exposure.

 

On cue, Lance’s eyes slid shut, face turning towards Keith’s chest slightly. “When you left I thought about you sneaking back in and fucking me,” Lance said, hand finally starting to work himself for real, breathing coming shorter, eyes clenching.

 

“Fucking you where?” Keith asked, the lure of rubbing up against Lance and getting himself off again like an animal, almost irresistible now.

 

“Anywhere—everywhere, I don’t know— my room, your room—any corridor or like—” Lance’s mouth started running, pace matching how frantically he was jerking himself off.

 

“How?” Keith demanded, the request coming out a little rough.

 

“Inside me—you’d— _ haah _ —come inside me, let me feel it, or—between my legs, on my ass, or with your hands, or— _ in my mouth— _ ” Lance’s strokes were reaching a fever pitch, his words breaking around his heavy breathing. “Keith— _ Keith _ —I’ve never wanted anyone this bad— _ ever _ — _ mmh _ .” 

 

That was it. Lance was going to come soon, he could feel it, but he didn’t want it to end, not yet. Keith reached out and pulled Lance’s hand away from his cock, holding his wrist tight. “No,” Keith said into Lance’s hair, his nose burrowing into the locks, savoring the smell of Lance’s skin and shampoo. “I’m gonna fuck you now.” 

 

Lance groaned long and hard, his free hand automatically making to touch his dick before Keith stopped him. “Wait.” 

 

Lance complied, heaving breaths carrying the evidence of the effort it took not to touch himself, hands at his sides.

 

Keith extricated himself enough to begin rummaging in his uniform jacket at lightning speed, getting out the lube and condoms, tossing them at Lance, and then quickly ejecting the jacket into the room like he knew amused Lance. He also got rid of the plain black t-shirt he was wearing underneath, and pulled his boots off while he was at it.

 

He returned his attention to Lance, whose eyes were fixed on his body, hungry and alive with desire. Keith’s chest bloomed at the attention. 

 

Keith rolled Lance over onto his side with a firm hand on his hip, and Lance groaned at the renewed contact. He then slid in against his back, his arm snaking down to support Lance’s head again. Like this, Keith could whisper right into Lance’s ear. “Lance, are you ready for this—for sure?” Keith asked, tone serious. Lance was very particular about when he was ready to be touched anywhere near his ass. Keith knew he felt extremely uncomfortable when it wasn’t in the cleanest condition possible.

 

“Yeah, I showered quickly earlier,” Lance said quietly. He slid one of his legs forwards as if to underscore his willingness, aiming to give Keith better access.

 

Keith kissed his shoulder. “Okay, if you’re ready.”

 

“ _ Mmh _ ,” Lance said, shivering and shifting further onto his front, burying his face into the pillow, and Keith followed, slotting his legs in between Lance’s, his arm now slung across his neck and shoulders.

 

Keith pumped a good amount of lube across three of his fingers, and traced them up and down between Lance’s cheeks, spreading the gel around liberally. Lance would probably call this an unholy amount, but Keith thought there wasn’t an upper limit on lube.

 

“How did I fuck you,” Keith asked him again. 

 

Lance was breathing audibly against the pillow. “You’d just like—just, just—wrench my pants down and get three fingers in—just push in and then—fuck me against the wall—” Keith pushed lightly against him with three fingers, drawing inspiration from Lance’s words, though he’d never actually follow through and hurt Lance. He could feel him shiver and move back against him eagerly.

 

“—Or in front of  _ James. _ ”

 

Keith stopped his light circling motions and made a confused sound. “James?”

 

“Uh—” Lance sounded slightly embarrassed, shifting his hips a bit, and Keith started moving his fingers again. “Yeah, cause I wanted him to see that I was the only one you—you—cared about.” Lance’s voice was creaking under the weight of the confession. 

 

“Oh,” Keith said. He pressed two fingers against Lance’s entrance carefully and slowly. “Like this?” He could feel Lance’s exhales loosening up the muscles under his fingers, allowing the tips to slide in bit by bit.

 

“Yeah—” Lance said, already sounding wrecked. The fantasy of three without preparation wasn’t feasible, but Keith was relieved his imitation was doing the trick. 

 

When Keith pulled back and started sliding one finger into Lance to start properly, Lance reached back to still his progress. “Just like that—like before—”   

 

“Okay,” Keith croaked and added the second finger back in. He’d have to be very careful to do this right. He pushed the fingers in as slowly as he possibly could, backing off with every bit of ground covered, trying to stretch Lance out properly without hurting him.

 

Keith could tell when a particular movement went too fast by Lance’s little inhaling gasps, but Lance stopped him when he went to retreat. “It’s good,” Lance said.

 

By the time Keith has worked both fingers in, Lance was sweating, panting, pushing his hips back in small motions that mirrored Keith’s small advances. Keith couldn’t quite believe they’d done it, working together like this—couldn’t stop staring down at his hand curled around one of Lance’s cheeks, thumb pressing down into the brown skin, two fingers sunk deep inside Lance. The lube he’d poured on probably hadn’t hurt the effort.

 

With a squeeze of Lance’s ass, Keith extracted the two fingers, using his thumb as leverage. He added more lube, and then started the process again with three; sinking in, stretching, pressing down on Lance’s prostate slowly, slowly, deliberately.

 

“Keith, Keith,” Lance groaned, twisting his neck so he could look at him out of his peripheral vision. “I just wanted to be  _ the one _ .”

 

Keith was momentarily confused, until he remembered what they’d been talking about. Spread across Lance’s back, three fingers deep in Lance’s ass, his brain retraced its steps to James, fully taking in what had been said. His brain felt like a bell that someone had taken a hammer to. He’d been a core part of Lance’s sexuality. This had been at the bottom of it all; the rivalry, the bravado, everything.

 

The sight of Lance grasping the sheets tightly, his face screwed up, back slick with effort swooped from his stomach down to his painfully hard dick. He liked giving Lance the attention he wanted. He liked that Lance’s eyes were always trained on him. He liked being  _ the one _ too. If he was being honest with himself, he’d liked how special it had felt to be Lance’s sole focus. Even when Lance ostensibly hated him and had considered him a rival.

 

Why exactly he had deserved this kind of fixation back then eluded him. He was Keith Kogane, a scrawny, petulant, confused, rude boy, who had trouble connecting with anyone at all… and Lance was popular and social and easy, except of course for with Keith.

 

But honestly, it didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter that Keith still didn’t understand every detail. The fact was that it was real. It was true. And it felt incredible. He was the one, the only one who got all of Lance’s smiles and jokes and his raw guts too. 

 

He felt another surge of confidence.

 

Keith leaned closer to Lance’s ear. “You  _ are _ the one Lance,” he said while fucking him slowly with the three fingers that were deep in his ass. Lance shivered away from the words like they were too much, grinding forwards into the bed, his shoulder blades bunching up and his hands coming up to grip the hand Keith had wrapped around his shoulders.

 

Keith removed his fingers, got on his knees and ripped open his pants for the second time, yanking everything down around his ass. He savagely tore open the condom he found lying next to Lance with his teeth and rolled it on impatiently, adding yet more lube. 

 

“Lance, did you know that you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted?” Keith asked, almost like an afterthought as he spread lube around his dick and around Lance’s ass.

 

Lance’s face snapped back to stare at Keith in disbelief. “What?”

 

Keith came closer, hand easing Lance’s hips up, encouraging him to slide his leg up further for better access. He lazily trailed his dick around the lube he’d just put there to spread it around. “You remember that fight with Sendak? You smiled at me, I remember the moment. I felt—” Keith stopped playing and pushed against Lance. “You just drove me crazy— _ arghh, _ ” Keith finished off, the enveloping heat of Lance’s body ripping a guttural sound out of his throat.

 

“Yeah?” Lance’s voice was private and desperate, eager for more, his hips moving back against Keith’s cock. The amount of lube and the stretching they’d done was paying off because the slide was easy. Keith still took it slow.

 

“Yeah,” Keith panted, about halfway there, one hand guiding his dick, the other smoothing over Lance’s back and wide shoulders. “All I wanted was to kiss you and feel your hands on my body.” Lance made low, almost wounded noises at his words. “I wanted to see you naked. Your long legs, your chest.” Keith was nearly all in, jerking in clumsily for the last half-inch. He then tipped himself forward to cover Lance completely, sliding his hand around Lance’s front to pull him into a tight embrace. “I wondered what it would look like to see you hard…” Keith breathed the words right into Lance’s ear. “For me.” 

 

Lance bit the pillow in response, making a  _ uuugh _ sound. He curled in on himself with a slight tremble. Both hands now free, Keith gathered him up against his chest, hugging him tightly, and rolled his hips against Lance’s gently. He wasn’t properly moving, just undulating, kissing Lance all over the back of his neck.

 

It felt incredible. Stiflingly hot and tight, and if Keith thought about the fact that he was inside Lance’s body, right next to the internal organs that kept him alive, he’d never stop, so he didn’t linger. Instead, his slow, deep motions transitioned into longer passes. He was pulling out further, but keeping the rhythm firm, and pressing in, long and sustained when his hips hit Lance’s ass.  _ I’m doing this on purpose _ , he was trying to say.  _ This isn’t just anyone that I’m fucking _ .

 

With the increased length of his presses, Keith adjusted his body slightly so Lance had the space to get his hand down onto his own cock, and Lance took the opportunity. He started stroking himself, quick and desperate, his body unable to keep still, using some of the lube between his legs to make things smoother.

 

Every stroke had Lance clenching around him, gasping, making some undefinable sound, and something in Keith snapped. He needed to come right now. It felt too good.

 

Keith matched Lance’s strokes with his own now furious pace, never really managing to pull out more than halfway, losing himself completely. “I wanted to—to shove my hands up your shirt and into your jacket, to open that—that  _ fucking _ robe—” Keith said between pants and hard thrusts. 

 

Keith’s pace punched short low growls out of Lance. His hand was working hard, racing towards the finish line. He was just about there, Keith could tell.

 

Ramping up his pace even further, he crushed Lance against him. “And now you’re mine,” he whispered in his ear. Lance came shaking, clenching down, with a great big groan that extended so low it stopped being audible. 

 

Keith slowed his pace and gently pulled out—timing it to minimize Lance’s discomfort, and match his orgasm’s aftershocks—and rolled onto his back to give Lance some space.

 

Keith stared at the bare ceiling. He felt kind of like he’d come vicariously through Lance just now: full and satisfied and happy, and ready to drift away.

 

After lying there, panting and gasping for a minute, Lance got himself up on his elbows and turned to face Keith. The motion got his attention. Lance looked slightly different now; the orgasm seemed to have regrown a layer of skin they’d scrubbed off in the last few hours. There was a lopsided lift to his smile and a twinkle in his eyes, but his gaze still had an element of wonder in it.

 

“Now take that shit off and come inside me,” Lance said after a moment, gesturing towards Keith’s still hard, condomed dick.

 

It took a minute for the words to hit him, but when they did, they shattered the start of his gentle comedown into the satisfying simmer of having given Lance what he wanted. He was back to a ravenous boil that made his head spin, focus narrowing, vision tunneling, but wait—  

 

“But you just—” Keith started.

 

“Do it,” Lance said, firmly. “Please.” There wasn’t a shred of hesitation on him. 

 

Keith jerked into action, lowered himself back onto Lance, ripping off the condom and throwing it somewhere, and spread another huge amount of lube over his dick.

 

Before he pushed back in and went for it, like his blood was singing at him to do, he stopped himself. He wasn’t sure what Lance was getting from this, wasn’t sure what he wanted him to do exactly. He hesitated for a moment. 

 

“C’mon, fuck me,” Lance said, tone demanding.

 

Okay, so Keith wouldn’t hold back. But—he was going to—give him something else too. Keith wrapped one hand around Lance’s torso, placing it onto his heart, kissed the skin below his ear, and went for it, hard.

 

“You’re so good— _ ah _ — _ fuck— _ so sexy,” Keith gasped directly into Lance’s ear. Lance was making affected noises, shoving back hard as Keith hips frantically moved against his ass. 

 

Lance moved his head to the side to let Keith kiss him, their mouths only vaguely aligning, resembling a wet slide. “ _ Mhhh _ , _ mhh _ — _ Lance _ , so fucking perfect for me,” Keith said into Lance’s mouth, and Lance groaned big and loud. He gripped Keith’s hands hard, looking at him from the corner of his eye with such real vulnerability that slammed Keith into the white noise of his second orgasm, inside Lance.

  
  


*

  
  


Instead of collapsing right onto Lance like his tired body wanted him to, Keith had the presence of mind to pull out and throw himself to the side in a sweaty, exhausted heap. His brain was blissfully empty, being pulled down into the dim depths of his consciousness, not quite asleep. He vaguely noted Lance stirring beside him a while later, the awareness crossing his mind like a shadow over a still lake at night. 

 

When Lance took his hand and started playing with his thumb and index finger though, he drifted back to consciousness, watching Lance’s furrowed brow as he fiddled. A worried bolt soured his stomach.

 

“Was it—was that good?” he asked tentatively. Lance looked deep in thought; maybe he’d gone too far after all. He’d just kept fucking Lance  _ like that _ , even though he’d already come…

 

Lance’s eyes snapped to his. “Keith…  _ are you serious? _ ” Lance’s tone was breathless, his grin wide and happy, one arm thrown above his head and his messy sex hair.

 

“Well… um, was it?” Keith could tell Lance thought it was, but he needed to hear it.

 

“Yeah, Keith, it was.” Lance looked at Keith for a second and then wrapped him up in his arms in a tight, long hug. “ _ Thank you _ ,” Lance whispered hot against his neck. “Thank you for doing that for me.” Keith’s heart soared at the confirmation. At having succeeded in giving Lance what he’d wanted. He squeezed back as hard as he could, digging his nose into Lance's skin.

 

When Lance finally eased up, Keith replied. “I didn’t do it for you—I mean of course I did, I mean—I also wanted to— _ urgh _ ,” Keith trailed off, frustrated, giving up on the train of thought, unable to properly convey what he meant. He sat up abruptly as if the added elevation might grant him some eloquence. “I’m so bad at saying stuff right.”

 

“Keith, I get it, you don’t have to—” Lance jumped in, sitting up too, immediately trying to make him feel better. But Keith didn’t want him to right then, he felt like the ball was still in his court. It was still his turn.

 

“No, listen, I wanna say something. I—love making you happy, you know? I would do anything for you,” Keith blurted out, taking one of Lance’s hands in his, and holding it tight, staring at the tangle of brown and white fingers. Lance squeezed back. “I just didn’t realize some of the feelings you had for me and—I’m just now figuring out all of the ways… And it’s overwhelming…” 

 

Lance wasn’t saying anything, so Keith took it as his cue to continue. “It feels like everything’s upside down… like I’m thinking I’m in one place, when actually… I  _ am _ there, but the context is different, and everything means different things… That probably doesn’t make any sense, but it’s—a lot of realizing. For me.” 

 

The more Keith said, the more he felt he wanted to. He always found it easier to just  _ do _ things, let his actions speak for themselves, but he’s learned that sometimes words were clearer, and he wanted to be clear so that Lance  _ knew _ .

 

“My feelings for you are…” Keith wracked his brain for words that would summarize the vortex inside his chest. “They’re big. So big I can’t even properly think about it all at once. It feels like— like—I might be feeling the most that anyone else has ever felt before... Because if someone felt more, they’d just die.” That sounded stupid, but he hoped Lance got it. He was still staring, crushing Lance’s hand in his like a lifeline in this jumble of words. “I can’t explain it, it just feels like I wanna spend every moment of every day with you. Like I would rip the entire universe apart for you if you needed or wanted me to. There’s something inside me that will never shut up unless you’re happy...”

 

Keith exhaled loudly, feeling a different kind of exhaustion start to creep over him. Gathering and categorizing and communicating all of his emotions required a lot of effort, but it felt good. It felt like he was tidying up and labeling all of the different piles there were lying around in his chest. 

 

“You know, with Shiro gone, you were the one that kept me afloat, you  _ saved _ me. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. You’ve got the biggest heart, you care so much—and that’s  _ hard _ . It’s really hard. I just can’t believe it’s me that you chose to love like you do, but I’m so grateful.”

 

Keith looked up from their entwined hands, having wrung himself out completely, hoping to see a face filled with understanding and not confusion, but Lance’s face was neither one nor the other. His eyes were wide, his mouth screwed up in a line like he didn’t want a sound to escape, and his entire face was wet with tears, running freely from his blue eyes down to his chin.

 

Keith was about to shout in alarm, but Lance interrupted, wiping his face in the crook of his elbow. “I can’t not, Keith. I didn’t choose,” he said, muffled against his skin. “It’s—I wasn’t being nice. It’s just what you deserve. And I wanted to be the man to give it to you.” Lance gave Keith a watery smile, interrupted by a shudder and a quiet sob. “I mean, you’re it. You’re the guy. You have greatness in every cell in your body, I really believe that. I’m so proud to be with you, and I’m so happy I could make you feel...” Lance trailed off.

 

If Keith wasn’t already emotionally drained, he’d probably have started crying too. 

“Yeah, you do.” The words cracked and scraped their way out. 

 

Keith reached out and cupped Lance’s cheeks and kissed him on his wet salty mouth, chaste but lingering, letting his forehead drop to Lance’s and his eyes close. Lance’s face was sticky but it was warm and soft and he loved the smell of Lance no matter what. It all felt so real, they felt so connected, more connected than yesterday or a few hours ago, their souls all tangled up. 

 

Keith never wanted to leave this space; his heart was so warm.

 

He loved Lance...

  
  


Keith only realized he’d started spacing, on the way to a snooze when Lance pushed him away gently, giving him a tender parting kiss before looking at the clock on his tablet.

 

“Shit, shit, shit, we only have ten minutes until we’re meant to meet—” Lance said, already jumping up to pull on his boxers and his flight suit, pulling a disgusted face at the fact that they hadn’t cleaned up. “God damn come everywhere,” Lance murmured to himself, before looking back at Keith and realizing he was still sitting on the bed, dazed, his eyes still blinking slowly. “Keith, we gotta go, we gotta  _ go _ , Shiro is never gonna let me live this down if we fuck up the transport cause we were jerking off and crying,” Lance said urgently.

 

Keith’s eyes flew open properly, confused and jarred. “Okay, uh—where’s the uh—what the—clothes?” Keith tried.

 

“Armor.” Lance suppressed a smile and chucked Keith’s flight suit at him from where it was folded on the floor. Keith caught it and tried to quickly fumble his way out of his pants and into the tight material. While he was managing to buckle up his armor, Lance bundled up their dirty uniform clothes into the sheet from the bed, and stuffed it into a laundry bag, throwing away the used condom and wrapper.

 

And with a final sweep of the premises, they charged off down the corridor together.

 

They made it with three minutes to spare, allowing Lance to pretend they hadn’t been engaging in any last-minute panicking.

 

“And what do you call this late hour, cadet Garret?” Lance tapped his wrist with a disapproving sigh when Hunk arrived one minute late. “What are we gonna do with this trouble maker, eh, Shiro?”

 

“Oh, so that means you  _ don't _ want the personalized snacks I prepared for the journey then, huh, Lance?” Hunk shot back with a sly smile as they all started towards their departure bay. “Good to know,” he added sagely over the din of Lance’s frantic backpedaling. “I forgot how much you loved Coran’s paladin rolls.” Hunk’s face was playfully serious. “I guess I’ll just have to eat all of them myself then,” he sighed.

 

“Whoa, okay, guys, let’s not—let's not be too hasty—” Shiro cut in. 

 

Keith watched the three of them rib each other good-naturedly all the way down to the transporters, and turned to Allura beside him. He smiled. He was so happy.

 

When they arrived at their lions, Lance stopped Keith and brought him in for a searing kiss with both hands firmly around his jaw. “Take care of yourself for me, Red,” Lance whispered against his lips, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs, tender and soft. 

 

When Keith returned his smile, Lance pulled back, reluctantly taking his hands off Keith. He took a few steps backward and shot Keith a dashing grin and a two-fingered salute. “Catch you on the flip side,” he said, before turning around to hurry over to Blue, his strides long and confident.

 

He would, Keith vowed. He’d take care of himself for Lance.

 

“Anything,” Keith murmured to himself watching Blue’s eyes light up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I’d love to know what you thought! (And if you spotted any typos, don't hesitate to let me know!) ♥
> 
> ☛ The first chapter of the prequel is already about finished, so stay tuned!  
> ☛ Talk klance (or Jojo or literally anything) to me on twitter [@king_froggy_](http://twitter.com/king_froggy_) or on tumblr [@king-froggy](http://king-froggy.tumblr.com), I legit love chatting.


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